EU threatening to cut off supply of vaccines to UK

[Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady]

Because they've not got enough apparently (despite the fact that they've got a shit load of AZ stockpiled because they've mostly stopped using it)

This is really starting to piss me off now, and has someone who is due 2nd Pfizer jab in 8 weeks in starting to worry I won't get it!

They're threatening to stop supply to USA too.

Wankers

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/ursula-von-der-leyen-threatens-cut-off-covid-exports-uk-b924652.html

@NewYearNewTwatName

Re UvdL

Covax was unhappy with her back in August as they felt she was being nationalistic about vaccines then, and undermining their procurement strategy for all countries.

I have screen shots from Reuters as I came across the article (dated August) whilst looking for something else but can't find the link now, will keep looking.

Interesting!! Good memory there @NewYearNewTwatName.

This is what the UK has done for Covax:

"The UK has helped to raise $1 billion for the coronavirus COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) through match-funding other donors, which combined with the £548 million of UK aid pledged will help distribute one billion doses of coronavirus vaccines to 92 developing countries this year."

What i don't understand is if the EU had got its act together in terms of contracts & roll out, then surely, given there is a finite supply of vaccine in Europe, the UK would have ended up with less and the EU more?

i.e their loss, our gain.

Fwiw, i hate this eu bashing, there vulnerable are dying and all many on here can do is gloat - it may well come back to haunt us.

The EU commission would have had the last word, and that would have included a sizeable chunk of the contracts going to the failed French vaccine regardless. The politics of the situation would have demanded it.

Absolutely, @Itsalonghaul. And we would be being told by pro-EU types that the UK would have faced a disaster if we'd not been in the EU, that we couldn't possibly have gone it alone. As, indeed, they were saying last year when we announced we wouldn't be joining in with the EU vaccine procurement programme.

Turns out we were already months ahead of them, even back then.

Fwiw, i hate this eu bashing, there vulnerable are dying and all many on here can do is gloat - it may well come back to haunt us

We are criticising the leaders of the EU and the European nations that are themselves threatening the lives of their citizens, by playing sillybuggers with the AZ vaccine, causing delays that cost lives, and strengthening the anti-vax movement.

You know it's the British variant that is causing issues in Europe now. The one the U.K. govt knew about in September and kept to itself for months. The one that caused the ports to be shut at Xmas when other countries finally found out. The U.K. have been absolutely shit throughout this whole thing. They could have STOPPED this but they fucked it up again. As a British citizen I despair of reading all these treads about EU trying to steal or block YOUR vaccines as this is not what is happening. And now it's all "oh, but we need to go on holiday, how terrible!"

@Umbivalent

Fwiw, i hate this eu bashing, there vulnerable are dying and all many on here can do is gloat - it may well come back to haunt us

We are criticising the leaders of the EU and the European nations that are themselves threatening the lives of their citizens, by playing sillybuggers with the AZ vaccine, causing delays that cost lives, and strengthening the anti-vax movement.

A few countries put their vaccinations on hold for a few days!

You know it's the British variant that is causing issues in Europe now. The one the U.K. govt knew about in September and kept to itself for months.

You should watch the science & technology committee talk about this. You’re really on the wrong foot with it.

Belgium actually asked if there were any going spare.

@Baileysforchristmas

It looks like Germany will buy the Russian vaccine

SPUTNIK SAGA: Both Germany’s Angela Merkel and Italy’s Mario Draghi have said they are ready to order Russia’s Sputnik vaccine if it gets approved by the European Medicines Agency.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, the German chancellor indicated that the country would be willing to buy the vaccine on a national basis if the European Commission didn’t go ahead with joint procurement. Italian Prime Minister Draghi said he had spoken to Merkel on the topic of Sputnik and agreed with her on this.

The irony of this is astonishing - it was Merkel who persuaded the big countries who wanted to do their own vaccine procurement process, to come back in with the centralised EU effort.

Flipping hypocrisy of all this

A few countries put their vaccinations on hold for a few days!

Yes. And I'm sure you can do the sums as to how many extra thousands of deaths will result.

And, oh ho ho, they just paused things for a few days! While they ignored their own EMA's advice! And gave fuel to the anti-vaxxers, and made their own citizens worried about something that was safe! Nothing to see here!

Avon they didn’t sit in on since September

It was traced back to September after data showed it a variant of concern. The reaction was swift.

Your thinking is very off

"The one the U.K. govt knew about in September and kept to itself for months."

They didn't 'know about it in September':
"Retrospective analysis traced the first identified variant to Kent, South East England, on 20 September 2020, which was followed by a rapid increase of the same variant identified later in November. " From WHO.

@thecatsatonthewall

What i don't understand is if the EU had got its act together in terms of contracts & roll out, then surely, given there is a finite supply of vaccine in Europe, the UK would have ended up with less and the EU more?

i.e their loss, our gain.

Fwiw, i hate this eu bashing, there vulnerable are dying and all many on here can do is gloat - it may well come back to haunt us.

But isn’t it more the case that if the EU had taken the same approach as the U.K. ie. look at and help set up supply chains earlier then the EU supply chain for the AZ vaccine at least would be much further along than it is, and giving them plenty of doses and they could have set up more factories. Vaccines aren’t a zero sum game. You can have more factories producing more doses. They are not finite. Hence AZ arranged for India and Australia to produce doses as this was the only way to supply the world ( at cost I might add) The argument that the U.K. is taking the EU’s doses (or vice versa) is nonsense to me. The EU could have taken the same approach as the U.K. and worked with the pharma companies to Iron out supply issues months ago instead of just treating the whole thing as a procurement exercise where dose price was the most important thing. No manufacturer and supply is the most important thing.

@Avondklok

You know it's the British variant that is causing issues in Europe now. The one the U.K. govt knew about in September and kept to itself for months. The one that caused the ports to be shut at Xmas when other countries finally found out. The U.K. have been absolutely shit throughout this whole thing. They could have STOPPED this but they fucked it up again. As a British citizen I despair of reading all these treads about EU trying to steal or block YOUR vaccines as this is not what is happening. And now it's all "oh, but we need to go on holiday, how terrible!"

This just isn’t true

@Avondklok

You know it's the British variant that is causing issues in Europe now. The one the U.K. govt knew about in September and kept to itself for months. The one that caused the ports to be shut at Xmas when other countries finally found out. The U.K. have been absolutely shit throughout this whole thing. They could have STOPPED this but they fucked it up again. As a British citizen I despair of reading all these treads about EU trying to steal or block YOUR vaccines as this is not what is happening. And now it's all "oh, but we need to go on holiday, how terrible!"

The variant 1st discovered in Kent! There corrected that for you.......

FwIW I suspect the mutation probably did start in Kent but since most EU countries / USA did f all genomic testing we can't actually say for sure.

Indeed @sashagabadon. The EU also refused to indemnify the pharma companies for what was a new jab. We didn't. We gave them lots of money to strengthen their supply chains, worked with them, and indemnified them.

The EU tried to screw down the price and wouldn't budge on the indemnity issue.

IN ITS VACCINE NEGOTIATIONS, Gallina and her team put great importance on three things: a wide selection of potential vaccines, low prices for each jab, and that drugmakers would bear legal responsibility if anything went wrong

We didn't do that. We agreed to indemnify the pharma companies.

Really interesting and informative article with the whole vaccine timeline here:

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

@sashagabadon that doesn't make sense because AZ (and others) would have known that there would be huge demand for this vaccine (as they had the pre orders) so why wouldn't they ramp up all facilities?

AZ got supplies to the UK quickly enough and back in Janary, the argument as they had QA yeild issues in european factories, they ve had 2 months to fix those but haven't, so the UK some supplies are coming from India or were.

so as far as i can tell, at this moment in time, there is a finite supply, putting it simply, AZ can only produce so much.

Now, where the EU has totally fucked up is rubbishing the vaccine, unbelievable and unforgivable, might not have got them any more but they have damaged there own vaccine programs.

We need to help europe out, if we don't we risk more variants, perhaps one that is immune to current vaccines and far more deaths, our economy is still heavily linked to the EUs.

so why wouldn't they ramp up all facilities?

Because it costs hundreds of millions of euros/pounds/dollars! @thecatsatonthewall And you can't just "ramp up facilities". Vaccine production is a very complicated, delicate affair involving many suppliers, laboratories and companies.

As the EU is currently discovering...

[quote thecatsatonthewall]@sashagabadon that doesn't make sense because AZ (and others) would have known that there would be huge demand for this vaccine (as they had the pre orders) so why wouldn't they ramp up all facilities?

AZ got supplies to the UK quickly enough and back in Janary, the argument as they had QA yeild issues in european factories, they ve had 2 months to fix those but haven't, so the UK some supplies are coming from India or were.

so as far as i can tell, at this moment in time, there is a finite supply, putting it simply, AZ can only produce so much.

Now, where the EU has totally fucked up is rubbishing the vaccine, unbelievable and unforgivable, might not have got them any more but they have damaged there own vaccine programs.

We need to help europe out, if we don't we risk more variants, perhaps one that is immune to current vaccines and far more deaths, our economy is still heavily linked to the EUs.[/quote]
But the U.K. government had a hands on, what can we do to help approach. Financing the trials in the U.K., Setting up a manufacturer in the U.K., fill and finish from scratch. Helped AZ iron out any problems. The EU didn’t do this, just bought the doses. Then threatened to sue them!
If anything the EU should be thanking the U.K. as where the AZ vaccine is concerned it’s thanks to what they learned setting it up in the U.K. that the EU factories were set to go so quickly.
I think in all this we forget what a great human achievement all of this is. AZ have worked at lightening speed. It must be infuriating to be doing all this (at cost) and to be just met with fake news from people that should know better, criticism and threats to sue!!!

There's a piece in the NY Times today that sets out all of the EU's errors in much the same way as the British newspapers. There's no justification for their current displays of vaccine nationalism. The new victim of it is Papua New Guinea who have a COVID surge. Australia is trying to help by donating AZ vaccine but of course their 1million dose order was seized by Italy/the EU - who haven't answered their request for it to be sent to PNG. They've appealed to AZ directly now.

The problem is when you give into bullies their behaviour often escalates

It was Merkel who persuaded the big countries who wanted to do their own vaccine procurement process, to come back in with the centralised EU effort

Hang on though ... unless I imagined this, weren't Germany discovered to have been trying to source vaccines on their own?

While on the EU, a further irony occurred to me. Granted nobody knew Covid was coming, but if anyone had suggested before Brexit that one day the EU would try to block lifesaving vaccines, the howls of "conspiracy theorist" and "tinfoil hatter" would have been instant and deafening

Funny how things turn out isn't it ...?

Where the EU went wrong and why they can only blame themselves