EU threaten to cut off vaccine supply to the UK 2

[Baileysforchristmas]

As the other thread is full

www.politico.eu/article/commission-proposes-six-week-vaccine-export-ban-amid-fears-of-trade-war/

U.K.

Well, it is a thread. Uvdl has made it her explicit trump card to force movement in the negotiations bit, using her own figures, it doesn't seem to add up.

I mean, I'm sure uvdl and the French foreign minister have more information to hand than I do but why wouldn't they use that specific information to make it clear that it's more than bluster?

Not thread, threat.

Stopping second our second Pfizer dose is the only threat they have (I think stand to be corrected)

But I’m heartened that the number they keep saying 10m seems to be incorrect

Speaking after President Macron’s failed gambit to block exports of the vaccine, Jean-Yves Le Drian said Europe would not “pay the price” for the UK’s decision to prioritise the number of people getting a first dose “knowing there will be problems with the second one”

But it's totally all about a dispute with AZ, and nothing to do with the UK at all, and anyone claiming otherwise is reading Daily Mail headlines. Right?

As of 23rd of march France had 2.3m and uk now has got 2.7m so, I'd say similar (but slightly better the uk)
However, Macron has to realise this isn't a competition, my mum used to tell me that she didnt care what other kids were doing, that if ii was doing something wrong I had to take responsibility for it... so he should be minding his own business and encouraging his citizens to have 1st or 2nd doses and to staying at home,,, because he's got bigger problems than the uk's 2nd doses at the moment

@FourTeaFallOut

Telegraph:

"France’s foreign minister has said the EU will not be “blackmailed” by the UK on Covid vaccines.

Speaking after President Macron’s failed gambit to block exports of the vaccine, Jean-Yves Le Drian said Europe would not “pay the price” for the UK’s decision to prioritise the number of people getting a first dose “knowing there will be problems with the second one”.

"You can't be playing like this, a bit of blackmail, just because you hurried to get people vaccinated with a first shot, and now you're a bit handicapped because you don't have the second one," he told France Info radio.

"The UK is proud to have vaccinated many people with the first dose, but they will have a problem with the second dose,” he added. "We are fully vaccinated with two doses, not one. Today we have the same number of fully vaccinated people in France and the United Kingdom."

...Well, technically we have more fully vaccinated than France but this seems a minor point compared to this idea that we are reliant on the EU to complete the second doses...this isn't the case, is it?

Surely we still have the 10m Pfizer doses from the 20m Pfizer shipment and the capacity to dish out 2m home grown a/z vaccines/week - and that would meet the requirements to "fully vaccinate" all the first doses?

When were these comments made? How are the UK blackmailing Europe? Why even mention UK and pass judgement. They so keen all time cast comments That we rushed to approve That we widened gap between dosage. What exactly visit about our vaccination done by nhs that bother France. They even said Israel compromised on their residents privacy by sharing data.

We have had a lot of trials here which I guess has made UK seem like a attractive market to trade in.

The Oxford AZ is so tricky to unpick but blooming obvious.
It was developed here with UK investment and trials.
Long before AZ were partnered up and contacts signed.
As originally Oxford considered partnership with merk American but due to trump at that time the government suggested astrazeneca.
So in reality I couldn't tell you how much in total UK invested.
A lot more than was put in the contact.
I think I read they already had a vaccine they adapted for covid 19 so wasent totally from scratch.

I think whats being lost on eu is no firm has ever developed a vaccine tested manufactured and delivered in such a short time limit. Is an absolute miracle..
I guess when you combine best scientific minds from around the world at it and throw money at it and assistance then good things happen.
How they couldn't forsee the complexity and nature of vaccines and can see all the companies have struggled with yeild this is not unique to Oxford astrazeneca.

I don't think even think the UK could have forseen how sour things gone with EU.
With regards to curevac I think they probably thought wise to keep supply chains separate as we left the eu block.
Also one thing we have to do is boost our economy that suffered through covid but also build new trading relationships between other countries and international companies because the UK economy depends on that.
Clearly we have the expertise to build a decent science and pharmaceutical industry to UK which is exiting opportunities for our children even as I have a teenager who's not sure what she wants to do.

I do think we potentially have more than 21 million vaccines in total.
We don't know how much India sent before pausing.
We don't know accurate output of 2 UK az sites.
I believe the government has enough 2nd doses or will be able to manage to get some fairly quickly.
Moderna be massive boost if arrives next month.
Also pfizer seem deterred to honour UK contract and they delivered half .

anyone claiming otherwise is reading Daily Mail headlines. Right?

With their narcissistic, jingoistic goggles on, don't forget!

@FourTeaFallOut

anyone claiming otherwise is reading Daily Mail headlines. Right?

With their narcissistic, jingoistic goggles on, don't forget!

Wearing an outfit made of flags

I think whats being lost on eu is no firm has ever developed a vaccine tested manufactured and delivered in such a short time limit.

Well Macron knows. He was banging on about it yesterday. But all his praise was for the US; AZ might not exist. So he trashes the AZ, he ignores its existence, he doesn't give the UK/the Oxford scientists credit for developing it, but he wants it and if he doesn't get it he'll scream and scream until he's sick.

A three year old is capable of more logical thought processes.

I know we initially ordered all the vaccines in case some of them didn't work, but it's looking like a sensible decision for other reasons now.

And the govt's policy from early on of not saying how many doses we have in stock is also looking sensible. I might like to know they've got enough for my second Pfizer dose when it's due, but I quite see why they're not saying.

I don’t think the EU will block the Pfizer doses - Pfizer has already put some very strong statements out and must be lobbying hard behind the scenes. The EU can’t afford to have a public spat with another vaccine manufacturer.

I think it actually may be a worry about AZ second doses - I’m not sure the U.K. production can necessarily manufacture enough in time. Plus it will make planning what to do with new first doses very difficult.

Some people really do have the blinkers on in regards to the EU politicians. Of course this is political. They wouldn’t keep dragging the U.K. into it if it wasn’t. They are not happy that we are doing well currently, and would prefer it was a disaster to stop other EU members considering leaving the union. They would also prefer to point the finger at the U.K. and portray us as the villain in the narrative to brush over their incompetence.

I think they will end up doing the U.K. a favour with this terrible behaviour.

To be fair more people seem to have the blinkers on in the AIBU thread about Eu/Vaccinations. That’s where I thought I was posting

Some strong words being used by some eu or European leaders, it won't just be the uk who thinks this longterm , our leaders are saying much less thankfully and actually think they have handled this well.
Hopefully we have enough pfizer to do second jabs and maybe we need to just concentrate on them now , bringing them forward if need be and hopefully the uk production can do second doses of az, once we know we have enough for all second doses then we move on to first ones again. Its not ideal to have a delay but if most of top groups are fully vaccinated this should have an impact

The piece in the FT makes for interesting reading after the 'very tense' summit ended without agreement:

"
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at www.ft.com/tour.
www.ft.com/content/486a65fe-0608-4230-b9d5-c990f10d5be8

EU divisions over vaccine distribution were laid bare at a summit on Thursday as governments failed to agree on how to provide additional jabs to member states in need of emergency supplies.

Leaders clashed during a marathon videoconference which ended with no resolution to demands from predominantly poorer eastern member states for part of 10m in additional BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines.

Tense and sometimes ill-tempered discussions broke down after demands from Austria’s chancellor Sebastian Kurz for additional vaccine supplies for Vienna were rejected by leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel.

Kurz was leading efforts to ensure that Austria is part of a group of EU countries given extra doses after being affected by AstraZeneca’s delivery shortfalls. But his demands to hand out a majority of the jabs between Austria, the Czech Republic and Croatia were rebuffed by leaders who questioned Vienna’s need over more stricken countries in eastern Europe that are trailing the rest of the bloc.

Mark Rutte, Dutch prime minister, said Austria’s vaccine rollout was “not in bad shape” and the bloc had to consider giving priority to Bulgaria, Croatia, and Latvia. These three countries have consistently lagged the EU’s average vaccination rate after they weighted their buys towards AstraZeneca jabs that have been beset by supply delays"
Merkel expressed frustration at Austrian criticism of the EU rules, according to people briefed in the matter. She told the summit that vaccine contracts were “signed by member states and it was not by some stupid bureaucrats”.

The whole point of AZ being a scapegoat, and the UK by extension is to avoid scenes like this breaking out.

After all the goal was more unity not less.

Indeed @Itsalonghaul I agree.

@Itsalonghaul

The piece in the FT makes for interesting reading after the 'very tense' summit ended without agreement:

"
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at www.ft.com/tour.
www.ft.com/content/486a65fe-0608-4230-b9d5-c990f10d5be8

EU divisions over vaccine distribution were laid bare at a summit on Thursday as governments failed to agree on how to provide additional jabs to member states in need of emergency supplies.

Leaders clashed during a marathon videoconference which ended with no resolution to demands from predominantly poorer eastern member states for part of 10m in additional BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines.

Tense and sometimes ill-tempered discussions broke down after demands from Austria’s chancellor Sebastian Kurz for additional vaccine supplies for Vienna were rejected by leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel.

Kurz was leading efforts to ensure that Austria is part of a group of EU countries given extra doses after being affected by AstraZeneca’s delivery shortfalls. But his demands to hand out a majority of the jabs between Austria, the Czech Republic and Croatia were rebuffed by leaders who questioned Vienna’s need over more stricken countries in eastern Europe that are trailing the rest of the bloc.

Mark Rutte, Dutch prime minister, said Austria’s vaccine rollout was “not in bad shape” and the bloc had to consider giving priority to Bulgaria, Croatia, and Latvia. These three countries have consistently lagged the EU’s average vaccination rate after they weighted their buys towards AstraZeneca jabs that have been beset by supply delays"
Merkel expressed frustration at Austrian criticism of the EU rules, according to people briefed in the matter. She told the summit that vaccine contracts were “signed by member states and it was not by some stupid bureaucrats”.

The whole point of AZ being a scapegoat, and the UK by extension is to avoid scenes like this breaking out.

After all the goal was more unity not less.

I wondered how that tele conference went

Incredibly interesting. This is exactly at the heart of the issue.

@nonono1

So am I right in saying that even if the EU does ban exports to the UK, it doesn’t actually matter because:

1. We already have all the Pfizer here that we ordered/need
2. We only have another 1 million doses of AZ coming from the EU plant
3. We produce 2 million doses a week of AZ in the UK and are also being supplied by India

Is that right and if so, what is causing the slowdown in the rollout next month?

It's not really a slow down compared to where we were a couple of weeks ago. The surge we are enjoying at the moment is the result of five million doses from India. It was supposed to be ten but the rest are delayed. The current surplus will run out in the next week or so and we'll then "only" be averaging 300k per day from our domestic suppliers until the second half of the surge arrives at the end of April. Not sure what else gets delivered when but I think that Moderna will be here around that time.

In this I do get the commissions frustration with the member states. The member states have basically sat back, left it all to the commission to sort out but decided themselves on what vaccines to buy in what quantities and price seemed to be a big factor (hence dependence on AZ).
Now these same member states are complaining about unfair distribution on the risks they had taken freely themselves. I’d be losing patience with these member states too.
It is an irony though when considering the echoes with the situation with the U.K. I guess the member states have one eye on their own populations and so keen to blame the commission rather than their own choices.

@sashagabadon

In this I do get the commissions frustration with the member states. The member states have basically sat back, left it all to the commission to sort out but decided themselves on what vaccines to buy in what quantities and price seemed to be a big factor (hence dependence on AZ). Now these same member states are complaining about unfair distribution on the risks they had taken freely themselves. I’d be losing patience with these member states too. It is an irony though when considering the echoes with the situation with the U.K. I guess the member states have one eye on their own populations and so keen to blame the commission rather than their own choices.

I thought the EC convinced the MS to let them buy centrally?

Actually stopping some MS who were further ahead with own discussions under the banner of going at same pace together

They didn't sit back, did they?

The EU stated it would run procurement etc despite that not being in it's remit or having the organisation lines to do so.

That was said by a pro EU writer in a pro EU publication, it's somewhere on this thread or another.

Thanks for the FT article - very illuminating

You hoped people in 27 different countries would struggle to feed their families because of a couple of politicians in Brussels. That's disgusting. I'm not glad your business is failing, but it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

@QuentinInQuarantino I didn’t even say that for gods sake! And what do you mean backtracking? It’s all there in my original post! I suggest you learn to read you vile person. Ironic that you accuse me of being nasty then spout some really personal nasty insults yourself.

To be fair more people seem to have the blinkers on in the AIBU thread about Eu/Vaccinations. That’s where I thought I was posting grin

I don't know, I think the EU is getting a pretty good kicking on that thread. The vote is decisively against the op.