Germany saying AZ vaccine only 8% effective in over 65s *MNHQ noting that this story has been widely debunked*

[dbIdb]

What fresh hell is this.

Why, why, why was the Oxford trial/data reporting so sloppy?

How has it come to this??

@turnitonagain

Patriotism is incredible...because it’s a German newspaper it must be due to sour grapes over the EU-AZ vaccine contract? Maybe let’s see how this plays out before assuming it’s all nationalist tit-for-tat.

Go read what is happening from a reliable source. Then come back and apologise.

The EU brought in the same legislation in the first wave. To stop PPE being sold and leaving the country. Which is acceptable.

The difference this time is there isn't a new emergency. They could have ordered when we did or before. This action is purely because they spread their vaccine buying to thinly. Now one vaccine is having supply issues and another has been abandoned before approval. Nothing to do with our Pfizer order.

The Telegraph is reporting the EMA will only approve it in under 65s:

The AstraZeneca jab has only been found to be eight per cent effective in the over-65s and will not be approved by the European Medicines Agency for use for that age group, according to reports in the German tabloid Bild and Handelsblatt on Monday night, citing unnamed sources.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/25/brussels-threatens-block-exports-pfizer-covid-vaccine/

EU only ordered once they knew vaccines would work.

That's not accurate, they have ordered large doses of vaccines yet to announce phase 3 trial results, 400 million doses of the Jannsen single dose vaccine for example, enough to vaccinate the entire adult population of the EU. Similar quantity of the Curevac vaccine ordered as well.
ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/public-health/coronavirus-vaccines-strategy_en

I wonder if there has been new data from the US. I understand the EMA review is more detailed than that of the MHRA (they required AZ to apply for a conditional license rather than an emergency licence, which required more data).

In the data submitted to the MHRA there was not data to ascertain efficacy in over 65s.

Sour grapes, I think. The UK pre ordered various vaccines way ahead of the EU bloc, so got ahead of the game. Oxford scientists were heavily involved in creating the AZ vaccine, which has been shown in trials to be effective, and is also being sold at cost price during the pandemic. The UK has destabilised the EU bloc by Brexit, so the fact that our vaccine programme is so advanced will no doubt be very annoying to EU member states who believed that being part of the EU would put them in a strong position to secure vaccine supplies. They don't like being proved wrong.

Things are so bad that Hungary has broken ranks and gone alone, buying the Russian vaccine for its people. That vaccine hasn't gone through proper clinical trials, but the Hungarian government is desperate to protect its people.

Watch out for a vaccine trade war with exports of vaccine manufactured in X County / Area prohibited from export to Y country.

Demand is exceeding production. A shitshow is in the pipeline.

An anonymous source and it's in a newspaper. What absolute rubbish. There's tons of actual data from the 10k subjects in the trial, many over 65s. The trial looks at safety and efficacy which is what all regulated drug trials look at.

@Butterfly44

An anonymous source and it's in a newspaper. What absolute rubbish. There's tons of actual data from the 10k subjects in the trial, many over 65s. The trial looks at safety and efficacy which is what all regulated drug trials look at.

Less than 500 were over 70 in the trial data submitted to the MHRA, and there were only 2 cases in the over 65 group.

Supposedly the EMA has more recent data. I doubt 8% is legit, though, could be the lower boundary of a confidence interval.

@RedToothBrush That might be the case further down the line, but at this stage the demand is much higher than the supplies, and one of the issues is that apparently on of the key ingredients comes from... [drum roll]... China! It is galling to think that the Chinese could be making a profit from suppying vaccine ingredients, for a virus that originated under their watch, especially as they suppressed information about it to begin with.

(Watch Dr J Campbell's video on YT dated 24 January if you want more information.)

The full account in English by the journalist breaking the story is here:

twitter.com/washingtonski/status/1353841871878049794?s=21

Main takeaways, the EMA is looking at not licensing it for over 65s due to efficacy concerns in that age group and the EMA has more recent data at its disposal than the MHRA had.

Sounds a big ol loada bollox to me

Go read what is happening from a reliable source. Then come back and apologise.

Apologise for what?! I said let’s wait and see if more reporting comes out before assuming it’s just Germany being jealous of Britain’s amazing vaccine programme.

Since my post seems the Telegraph has run the story as well so I have not a single apology to give at present.

They would say that wouldn't they. Anything to discredit the UK now we've left their club. So glad I voted out.,

There’s definitely politicking going on re: vaccines supplies. How much is it part of this? The answer will lie in what the EMA actually approves.

Coincidentally, 8% of AZ trial participants were 65+

@jimmyhill

Coincidentally, 8% of AZ trial participants were 65+

Hmmm

Wonder if they got their wires crossed then, and 8% is the sample size, not the efficacy.

It's a remarkably specific small number. It's too low to have been invented for political effect.

Either someone has misunderstood a scientific paper, or it's true.

As is being pointed out on Twitter, either Handelsblatt or AZ and MHRA are going to look very silly very soon.

I hope it’s the former out of those three. The thought of the latter is keeping me up ;

They would say that wouldn't they. Anything to discredit the UK now we've left their club. So glad I voted out.

I voted remain but seeing how the eu, in particular france and germany are behaving im glad the uk left. Britain seems to get shit for everything including good things they achieved aka the vaccine.

@Shaniac

They would say that wouldn't they. Anything to discredit the UK now we've left their club. So glad I voted out.

I voted remain but seeing how the eu, in particular france and germany are behaving im glad the uk left. Britain seems to get shit for everything including good things they achieved aka the vaccine.

I’m not so sure. The EU apparently contributed hundreds of millions of euros to the development of the AZ vaccine and on the cusp of approving it they are now being told that only a third of the vaccine that was promised to be available to them at this point in time will be. And this comes after 4-5 million doses were transferred from the European manufacturing base to the UK last month when our own factories here hit problems.

If this was the other way around people would be up in arms.

They want transparency into where the vaccines are being exported to, only because they paid an initial fee which was to be used by AZ to ensure sufficient manufacturing capabilities. As they are threatening to now not deliver what was agreed and signed for, it is reasonable really that the EU is keen to know if other countries are getting their doses as requested, and whether formal non compliance action can be taken. They're not looking to stop vaccines at the borders and steal them (yet...).

That said, bet they're seething that our vaccine rollout is going well after the goading about being silly to reject their offer of joining their joint procurement programme. I do hope though things get resolved, vaccination really is a global effort to get things 'back to normal'.

The 8% thing seems coincidental both in timing and when looking at participant numbers. If they are convinced of it (and at the moment they haven't provided any data or evidence to back up their claims), then they surely won't be as arsed about not getting as many as planned, eh.

The UK and US have both spent 7 times more per capita than the EU on vaccine development, procurement and production, and also invested more in advance to help companies boost development capacity, according to the Financial Times. Thank goodness we didn’t join their joint procurement programme!

www.ft.com/content/c9bbc753-97fb-493a-bbb6-dd97a7c4b807

I'm less concerned about their scaremongering and more concerned they will block our supply of vaccines!

It's a massive thing to say though, isn't it? Either way. God knows how it'll get sorted. Presumably more data. And someone backing down. Absolutely loads of over 65s have been having that jab. I've know idea how it divvies up between Pfizer and Oxford.