EU threaten to cut off vaccine supply to the UK 3

[EasterIssland]

Thread 2 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4200959-EU-threaten-to-cut-off-vaccine-supply-to-the-UK-2?pg=1

Yes @Itsalonghaul it’s a postcode lottery. I can see how an island would be very different to the Basque Country - I have a holiday home on one and yes - outside of tourist season no hay nada . The summer season starts in 3 months, I thought you might have seen a different date, as for now Brits can’t enter Spain

Cafe owners are not more important than the elderly- can you link where I said that? I said that now they have done the over 80s they were doing younger front facing workers at the same time as doing the over 60s. (From today that’s stopped). In fact they hadn’t yet done supermarket cashiers, they were on the list. They’d done police, teachers, dentists, carers etc.

So if your friends in their 40s were at more risk due to their jobs they would get it sooner than their friends who worked from home, for example. I think that’s a good thing, it acknowledges the additional risk faced by people who do public facing jobs and wrt cafe owners, who have suffered more than anyone due to a fairly pathetic furlough system, gives them a fighting chance at survival. It’s also a clever move as it keeps people meeting on outdoor disinfected terraces with distanced tables and maximum group sizes as opposed to furtively inside their homes.

We have had our third wave. I think you’re referring to the fourth wave which is starting now. It’s scary of course but preliminary figures have shown the hospital death rate down as well as the average age for deaths and no care home COVID deaths - ie the vaccine is working. It’s a vaccine versus virus race, but the variant isn’t getting the head start it had in Britain.

And if Spain really was so eager to get tourist money in, the Easter holidays would have been the chance to allow richer Spaniards to flock to the coasts as usual. They didn’t - to my own personal frustration- because they weren’t ready. It’s important yes - but it isn’t the be all and end all. Also, they are a big champion of vaccine passports and you even need to show a pcr to cross in from France now - they’re not going to have a virus free for all.

@QuentininQuarantino

Before anyone starts I’m frustrated with spain’s lack of clarity, not the EU who recommended to continue it. In fact the EU tried to get a coordinated response because all countries are doing contradictory things

Remind me again how often again over the last five to ten years we've heard about the "EUSSR" and the "fact" that EU countries were ruled by Brussels...and yet here we are with individual countries making their own vaccination policy decisions and countries struggling or not with their vaccine programmes.

That said I hope it works out OK for you and yours.

5% apparently - including domestic tourism. I thought it would be higher.

Yes @notimagain that bloody sovereignty we don’t have!!

What will happen if the EU don’t approve Sputnik v, what about the people in Europe who have already had it?

www.politico.eu/article/germany-starting-talks-to-buy-russias-sputnik-v-vaccine/

[quote Baileysforchristmas]What will happen if the EU don’t approve Sputnik v, what about the people in Europe who have already had it?

www.politico.eu/article/germany-starting-talks-to-buy-russias-sputnik-v-vaccine/[/quote]
God knows, it's also my doubt regarding the Spanish approach of not giving second doses to those that have had first AZ as it looks it's going to happen.

Interesting.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-07/eu-seeks-united-front-to-respond-to-astrazeneca-vaccine-risks

It’s very odd to me to see the scrutiny over AZ, all the comments, stopping and starting etc in the EU and yet on the other side throwing the much feted “precautionary principle” completely out of the window when it comes to Sputnik. It’s such a mismatch.
Sputnik is likely a good vaccine and actually very similar technology to AZ in any case but can’t be produced in EU soil (yet)where you at least can oversee things and have approved the factories ( which we know the EU take seriously)
And it will be very difficult to row back from saying you will approve or then not approve it politically and what if problems are then encountered while rolling it out (like they have with the other vaccines and is possible)
I feel sorry for the EMA being put in this position via the back door by the nation states. The pressure will really be on them.

@sashagabadon I know it’s completely baffling why they are even considering it when they have approved so many other vaccines which will start to roll in next month 🤷‍♀️

[quote Baileysforchristmas]What will happen if the EU don’t approve Sputnik v, what about the people in Europe who have already had it?

www.politico.eu/article/germany-starting-talks-to-buy-russias-sputnik-v-vaccine/[/quote]
Do the MS need the EMA to approve before they administer? As they have their own health agencies anyway, and they are, rightly or wrongly, going against EMA advice on other things? Because of their sovereignty.

@QuentininQuarantino probably not but how would you feel if you have had Sputnik but EMA don’t approve it? At least with AZ all the data is there to see to make an informed choice. The EMA approval was set up to give confidence in the vaccine rollout in Europe 🤷‍♀️

I personally wouldn’t mind if my own country had approved it. I’d assume they had analysed the data. Given how over cautious they are about AZ I would trust them on others. I’d prefer to have two of the same jabs but otherwise I don’t mind. I don’t mistrust Russian science just because it’s Russian - historically they’ve been scientific pioneers, and I trust Spanish scientists to verify it because I work alongside biologists (although am not one) and a lot of them are involved in vaccine trials (not Sputnik) and the diligence is impressive to me.

I think Brexit has inflated the perceived importance of the EU to Brits. If you can remember 10 years ago nobody thought about the EU having much to do with them - just look at voting figures for MEPs. It’s the same inside the EU - we don’t think too much about the EU because the buck stops with our own government.

So if that’s the case why even have the EMA? Why even bother with the EU vaccine scheme? Each country might as well have all gone their own way, which is happening anyway 🤷‍♀️

I think it's odd not to give a second dose of AZ to younger people when they have already had a first. Medics on the news in the UK are saying a first jab without complications is pretty much proof positive that you aren't susceptible to the rare immune response of blood clots.

For under 30's in the UK awaiting their first jab, it seems reasonable to offer an alternative vaccine.

The most useful thing I've heard which has helped with proportionality, is that we are roughly twice as likely to die in a road traffic accident this year than to get blood clots due to an immune reaction to vaccine

But

Random 'but' there at the end

The scheme was to try and get some sort of unified speed because the lack of internal borders means nobody is safe until everyone is safe. Thought that was obvious. The EMA? I don’t know. For cooperation? Sharing research more easily? Guidance rather than law? Why have a WHO?

So do I @LimitIsUp and it seems only Spain is saying that! I’m annoyed and hopeful of a U turn...

I 100% would refuse a Russian vaccine - a pernicious government, I wouldn't put anything past them. But then my dc were at school in Salisbury during the Novichok incident when the Russians were playing fast and loose with UK civilians lived

Lives! Dammit

@QuentininQuarantino well I don’t think the unity is working if different countries are going off buying vaccines on their own back, especially ones that haven’t been approved 🤷‍♀️

www.politico.eu/article/russia-coronavirus-vaccine-disinformation-sputnik/

My understanding is the smaller member states don’t necessarily have their own regulators but “piggy back” off the EMA.
I know abit about Hungary as my colleague is Hungarian and we talk about it. Hungary started with Pzfizer in late December before EMA approval as Orban said he was happy with the MRHA approval in U.K.. He is currently rolling out the Chinese vaccine and Sputnik with no EMA approval (maybe relying on Chinese, Russian approval?)
My colleagues mum had the Chinese vaccine about a month ago and her sister had Sputnik on Saturday. I get the impression Orban does not really care if the EMA approves these two vaccines in the future or doesn’t. I don’t think he is typical of member states attitudes to the EMA though.

quentin friends run holiday lets, so it has been a disaster, and they are not public roles so nowhere near the top of the list for anything. Understandably. Their entire income hangs in the balance of this summer.
They seem to think July and August will be looking more hopeful, they are annoyed as UK infection rates are very low, and vaccinated people is now high from the UK, so why the restrictions?! Not that anyone can leave the UK anyway. It is all massively unclear on all fronts, in most countries.

I suspect that something is going on with the variants. There is quiet cause for concern somewhere, because the cautious - perhaps even overly cautious approach to travelling, even with testing and vaccinated travellers seems not to be happening anytime soon. It is almost as if they are waiting for more information and clarity on something they are not sharing with us at the moment. So maybe one of the variants looks really bad, or is not responding to vaccines....but 100% I can feel there is much more to it than is currently being shared with us.

@QuentininQuarantino just read sanidad has said there is still time to make up their minds about the second dose til end of may.. tho I know some that need to have it beginning of may (just read it in 20minutos)

On a much more positive note, I read this morning in the Times that the UK will reach herd immunity on Monday. So that was pretty heartening to read, and no small achievement given where we were this time last year just happened to be the peak of the first wave! 12th of April.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/herd-immunity-covid-coronavirus-uk-b1828267.html