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??

@RedToothBrush german papers are quick of the mark for getting updated news out

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@RedToothBrush so they could of just sorted all this out without some of them bringing the uk into it as it was never our fault .
Just scrutinising az and holding them to account as per their contract seems to be getting the desired response they want and need. [/quote]
It does seem like a very unnecessary public tantrum. But the EU needed to be seen to be 'being tough' in order to mitigate the ongoing problems and internal unrest at the slowness of the programme.

It does sound like it has fortunately largely blown over.

@RedToothBrush tbf I don't think media have helped as usual , dramatic headlines
If this is all true along with the other good news re: vaccine then this is good for all as vaccines need to be in high numbers in all countries to help beat this. Im sure countries will catch up , also probably have the full protection quicker than some of us due to vaccine gap ( hoping that we have made right call on this )

@RedToothBrush to be fair most of the european leaders kind of stayed out of it from what I have seen and left it to get sorted , just a few whose use of words could maybe of been better.
Especially with media today they can turn a molehill into a mountain and if seems headlines don't have to really reflect the truth.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@RedToothBrush so they could of just sorted all this out without some of them bringing the uk into it as it was never our fault .
Just scrutinising az and holding them to account as per their contract seems to be getting the desired response they want and need. [/quote]
I read in the Swedish media that it was the UK that brought itself into it. They say that it kicked off when out of nowhere UK government 'sources' annouced to the UK media that the EU wouldn't get any doses from UK plants until after they got their 100 million doses. AstraZenica responded to this by announcing that the EU would only get 40% of its order. Then the EU kicked off. partly because of the order reduction and partly because it gvae the impression that the UK knew in advance and had been working with AZ to ensure they got doses ahead of the EU.

We need the vaccine now, and so we are not interested in an escalation," it said. A lawsuit would lead "all sides to misery"

This is true and I’m glad they’ve said it. But it also reinforces that a position of speed in U.K. was the right way to go (remembers on here pp worried we approved too far in advance to EU). Our urgency was good.

What a palaver the whole thing has been! It’s made me view Germany in a different light, France seems to have mostly stayed out of it. I hope we do help them out, even at risk of slowing our own program ( once our high risk Are done) as I think we could potentially have tons of vaccine come April with novovax coming on stream soon too.
Shows the benefits of being able to do trials in your own countries and what an advantage that gives you in early supply, U.K. has trialed with so many of the vaccines, pfzier, Oxford, novovax and I think a few more?,

We need the vaccine now, and so we are not interested in an escalation," it said. A lawsuit would lead "all sides to misery"

In other words - “we know we don’t have a leg to stand on and are trying to get out of this rather unedifying situation of our own making without embarrassing ourselves on the world stage even more”.

History is never forgotten and our relations with France and Germany over hundreds of years have been as warring factions. You’ve only got to look at Scotland’s opinion of England to know these sentiments don’t disappear.

They don’t trust us and we don’t trust them.

FFS.

Authorisation to export isn’t great

Hopefully they won’t use it, but it looks like flexing power to calm angry member states because they have done a poor job

@fatcatthincat don't seem to of been any comments here from
Goverment much they kept pretty quiet , it was more comments reported from a few eu people and the az ceo mentioned difference in contracts etc

@FatCatThinCat I’m a bit of a news obsessive and I saw no stories to that effect. If UK government sources really had announced that then it would have been widely reported. Can you link to stories in the U.K. media about those announcements which predate the EU reaction?

Canada and Israel (and others ) also get Pfizer vaccine from Belgium, presumably it will affect them too? Or is it just the UK being targeted?

@cathyandclare

Canada and Israel (and others ) also get Pfizer vaccine from Belgium, presumably it will affect them too? Or is it just the UK being targeted?

Afaik it’s everyone. Spanish media is reporting that Israel and uk have stolen their vaccines hence why they’re so far ahead

Urghh Easter I should stop reading all this, it's giving me an ulcer.

Not you of course, just the Spanish reporting

I’m Spanish so I’m putting up with my friends acussing us stealing their vaccines and that this is revenge for brexit. Nothing related with why is the eu roll out so slow for them.

I found that back in November pfizer told the British gov that we would only receive 25% of agreed. Can’t remember the uk throwing out the toys out of the pram

At the end of the day this is polítics. They’ll all try to blame others when they do things wrong

All I can say is thank god we do at least have a few vaccines that work. If there was only one or even two, it doesn’t take much imagination to see the carnage!
Hopefully it’ll soon be a case of too much vaccine and we can be generous with our supply. In a way, that’s a good problem to have rather than the opposite.

Yes, and at one stage we were due 30 million AZ by Xmas, which went down to 4 million.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-04/delays-hit-oxford-vaccine-production-for-u-k-government-supply

Afaik it’s everyone. Spanish media is reporting that Israel and uk have stolen their vaccines hence why they’re so far ahead

Wow, so we’re adding some anti-semitism in too?

Where does all this leave NI which has an open land border with ROI? NI's vaccination programme, like the rest of the UK, is steaming ahead, while the ROI is far slower, has now stalled and is going to take months longer as they're part of the EU programme.

So what will happen when NI is vaccinated and ROI is not? Both are currently under lockdown, and the north will surely be ready to come out of it sooner. They can't close the border though.

That's the latest point at which the UK gives excess to RoI.

Pfizer expect to get back delivering as much as expected very soon and then exceed delivery targets by end of the quarter.

Any situation should be a matter of weeks. Which is not ideal in a pandemic but frankly such a GOOD vaccine situation seemed unlikely a few months ago.

It's horrible politicking imo.