What do EU nationals think of the vaccines mess?

[Frazzled2207]

I’m a committed remainer. But the EU really did mess up last night. More seriously they are not in a good position right now with regards vaccine supply. Lots of anti-Eu posts here right now from committed remainers like me.

Just wondering what EU citizens make of all this and is there any bad feeling towards the UK? Do you think the EU has a right to some of the UK’s vaccine supply? Are people angry at the fact that the UK was able to secure more vaccines more quickly? Or are we coming across as selfish idiots?
Generally curious and am not here to start an argument

Yes I've also reported it.

Re the UK coming out of this as a better place for life sciences companies to invest, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, "Nothing says 'closed for business' like harassing a company providing life saving medical treatments.".

I’m in Ireland. I’m finding the mumsnet response to this over the top.
Plus ça change. Mumsnet usually goes over the top.

[quote MesmerisingMinerva]@Splodgetastic wow, and people on this thread have said I have been shit stirring.

My tentative return to MN has been tough. So sad that it reflects the divisive and angry discourse elsewhere in the UK fora and press.

We used to be better than this here. People have tried to make me feel shit on here tonight for giving an opinion in answer to the OP and defending it.

I don't mean to be "I remember when this was just fields" but the tone here has been surprisingly aggressive. We used to be able to debate much more nicely.[/quote]
TBF, this topic (and the thousands of other topics on Covid) are going to be a hotbed of emotions.

Everyone is bored/pissed off/ worried etc. And every single posted reply is going to be influenced by the position that poster is currently in.

I’m my own worst enemy! I keep swearing to myself that I’ll avoid threads, but then end up on threads like this🤣.

If you haven’t seen it, there’s a great thread on the coronavirus section - it’s called Good News and I think it’s currently on thread 8. Its been my go-to thread for some sanity. It’s not “stick your head in the sand” it’s more reminding us of what positives can be gleaned each day.

My brain goes off on weird tangents quite.frequently - which has lead me to think that, once we are all in a better place, it would be interesting to have the whole coronavirus thread archived to its own section on “classics” as there is a lot of material/views that could be interesting to look at with hindsight!

@Empressofthemundane

A lot of European posters on here are saying they haven’t noticed much reporting on this topic or that it is fairly low key. If all that tough talk wasn’t for internal consumption, I’m not sure what it was for.

Well even early on a Sun AM I'm not detecting much reporting on this issue - but then again, and I hate to break it to you, most of the European press has never been obsessed with certain topics such as Brexit and UK - European relations.. Just maybe most of the "tough talk", as you describe it, was only being pushed in certain elements of the UK MSM for UK domestic consumption, and the rest of European media shrugged their shoulders and said "tant pis..."

Anybody following this knows some idiots in EU HQ appeared to have a rush of blood to the head Friday night and some of what reportedly went on was unforgivable...even a die hard europhile can accept that, I know I do...It's also certainly a welcome shot across the bows of the tiny minority of those living in the EU who wanting further political or functional integration....but lets not forget, as we drift into Sunday AM, that some in the UK, both in the MSM and some of the usual suspects in places such as this have a vested interest in stirring the .

[quote notimagain]@Empressofthemundane

A lot of European posters on here are saying they haven’t noticed much reporting on this topic or that it is fairly low key. If all that tough talk wasn’t for internal consumption, I’m not sure what it was for.

Well even early on a Sun AM I'm not detecting much reporting on this issue - but then again, and I hate to break it to you, most of the European press has never been obsessed with certain topics such as Brexit and UK - European relations.. Just maybe most of the "tough talk", as you describe it, was only being pushed in certain elements of the UK MSM for UK domestic consumption, and the rest of European media shrugged their shoulders and said "tant pis..."

Anybody following this knows some idiots in EU HQ appeared to have a rush of blood to the head Friday night and some of what reportedly went on was unforgivable...even a die hard europhile can accept that, I know I do...It's also certainly a welcome shot across the bows of the tiny minority of those living in the EU who wanting further political or functional integration....but lets not forget, as we drift into Sunday AM, that some in the UK, both in the MSM and some of the usual suspects in places such as this have a vested interest in stirring the .[/quote]
Absolutely this. In my country, this has barely made the news.

A lot of the British public seem reluctant to accept that maybe they're just being manipulated by their press as usual. The British media are mostly very anti-EU, they're loving this. getting everyone into a frenzy.

A lot of the British public seem reluctant to accept that maybe they're just being manipulated by their press as usual.

I think you're probably overestimating just how interested most of the British public are in this. As long as their elderly/vulnerable loved ones are vaccinated they will probably see the headlines, mutter 'Bloody EU' and turn the page over to the tv guide.

Never ever assume that MN is representative of real life.

Yeah, fair point.

@Backbee

The contract lawyers will be wrangling over this for some time to come, but my in-house lawyer assured me that:

They are wrong on most of those points, so maybe time for a new job?

Just arrived late to this thread and had a little chuckle at this

@MrsOliviaGrant you've said it better than I can. Agree 100%.
I was horrified at the anti EU stuff on here and the headlines 'Hands off our jabs'
I actually heard an MP saying that they were being supplied at cost, but the EU contract delay was over price - they wanted it cheaper. Both can hardly be true.

When Pfizer had production issues, they reduced delivery to ALL their pre paid orders, and addressed supply. Hardly made the news. AZ wants to supply one customer 100% and another 30%. Newsworthy.

It is also fishy that AZ had received approval in the UK BEFORE it even applied for EU approval.

To answer the OP, I think the EU made a mistake in triggering Article 16 (which Johnson recently threatened to trigger - and Arlene urges regularly), but I imagine it was an error and it was quickly withdrawn.

But I am certainly not anti EU over it.

BTW Blocking export of medicine is pretty routine in an epidemic. India did it with paracetamol. UK has about 170 items blocked.

Trump tried to block face masks being sent to Canada, but it was pointed out that the raw material (paper) was imported from Canada - I forget how that worked out.

@MrsOliviaGrant

Gosh so many U.K. posters on here going mad when those of us who give our views and the views of our media outside the U.K. as asked by OP don’t feed their diatribe of how bad the EU are and how great the U.K. are.

You’re being led by your media. Over here things are a lot more balanced Re AZ that the EU could have a point in their reading of the contract. So we have to wait and see if they’re right or not. For the same reason no one is saying ‘oh let’s see if the EU goes mad about the Pfizer & Moderna delays’ as we know there isn’t the same ambiguity of contract there so it’s not even discussed.

Re Article 16, I grew up on the border. I was not happy to hear it was triggered yesterday evening. I saw Michael had called EU and before I went to bed last night the whole thing was resolved. Maybe alot of us don’t see the EU as sinister like the U.K. do so are not worrying about if they do it again. Plus we know what the DUP are like and crazy Arlene is loving this despite wanting the U.K. to trigger Article 16 herself a few weeks ago!

Like I said I’m not annoyed with the vaccine delay. It’s production issues mainly. If J&J is approved we can catch up quickly as it’s one dose. I’d nearly prefer my >65 relatives to get the Pfizer too as it seems a better idea.

If it doesnt pick up after these teething issues though I will be annoyed.

This 100%

U.K. press whipping up nationalist fervour to bury the atrocious news of how badly U.K. Gov has handled pandemic - 100000 deaths - how many of these were preventable?

@Asthesayinggoes

Ireland is a small country. They seem to be a bit renegade in refusing to change their corporate tax, pissing off half of the EU, GB and Trump lol at times along the way. I don't think that anyone at any level in the EU gives two shiny shites about peace on the island of Ireland. I suspect Biden being US president might have shifted the political landscape slightly as we don't know what he will do if he perceives Ireland to be shafted in any way. For such a tiny little part of land that is in dispute, bloody hell, they seem to get pulled into everything. Palestine is a similar victim to international politics. Sort it out.

The "Irish problem" is a U.K. problem - partition in 1922 and hundreds of years before that.

I’m living in the EU (not British). I’m happy that the EU have our back. Could they have ordered more? Of course. But no one knew how things would play out and which vaccines would work so they hedged their bets (as U.K.!) and their bets didn’t all fall in right place. I’m not going to blame them? Here the pandemic has been handled well...limited lockdowns and going smoothly. So vaccines are not THAT critical as in the U.K. with such a high death rate. I see the U.K. vaccination rate same as the Israeli...good for them but not really anything to do with us. Only contractual issues mentioned in the news here with no U.K. mention. Border issues don’t even feature as no one would know what they’re going on about anyways (same as Mediterranean border issues rarely mentioned in U.K. and no one would really get all het up about them in the U.K.)

To the poster who asked how people view the EC handling specifically - the country I live in is very small and would not have the buying power or expertise to buy vaccines on this scale, even if they teamed up with their very nearest neighbours. So the alternative is not the ‘U.K. model’ of developing/buying/approving vaccines, it’s just not an option here. So the comparison is not really portrayed. Buying by the ec is the best option for here even if it’s slow.

According to this, Belgium has the worst death rate in the world per million of population. I was surprised by that - am I reading it right?

www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

UK is third.

@Barababam. do you think the death rates in Belgium, france, Italy etc are an indication that the pandemic has been handled well?

@mechanicalwonder: I’m not in one of those countries. The country I am in has handled it well I think. We’re below no.50 on that list.

@Utterlybutterly8

According to this, Belgium has the worst death rate in the world per million of population. I was surprised by that - am I reading it right?

www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

UK is third.

You need to read the explanation in the link you shared which precedes the figures

"The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures."

I do remember that a Johnson’s threats to put gunboats in the English Channel and his threats to break international law over the Brexit agreement weren’t reported much either. Quite a bit of press about London ordering naval gunboats to detail small fishing vessels from December. Did the British press not report much on those threats?

As an EU citizen, I’m eye rolling and annoyed at the EU’s latest actions, but I’ve been worried about Johnson’s on more occasion.

Good articles on site on how/why the EU fell behind and the UK got ahead.

(My apologies if I've posted some of these before-I'm on different threads!)

www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-struggle-pfizer-biontech-astrazeneca/

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/29/we-had-to-go-it-alone-how-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

www.spiegel.de/international/europe/europe-s-vaccine-disaster-commission-president-ursula-von-der-leyen-seeking-to-duck-responsibility-a-1197547d-6219-4438-9d69-b76e64701802

www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-stalled-global-vaccine-drive-the-west-s-greed-could-come-back-to-haunt-it-a-dc4b8653-d935-4938-928a-746b031bf0c9

@PlanDeRaccordement Oh my goodness, you really are grasping at straws! 🤣🤣🤣

I'm not pleased the EU is having difficulty procuring vaccines, but it is a demonstration of all the is wrong with the EU and why I voted leave. The lumbering bureaucracy is a fine demonstration of too many cooks.

@SkiingIsHeaven Genius!

@TableFlowerss

Personally I am happier in a flawed but on the whole democratic EU than a corrupt and greedy UK run by the most inept government in recent generations

The EU democratic? What are you smoking? To compare the UK elected government (ignore the pointless House of Lords) to the EUs mammoth unelected bureaucracy is laughable. What is democratic about the bigger wealthier countries like France and Germany strong arming the smaller countries?

Personally I am happier in a flawed but on the whole democratic EU than a corrupt and greedy UK run by the most inept government in recent generations

This is so wrong that's it's funny. You need to reverse EU and UK and then you'll be on the money.