EU/AZ Court case

[3asAbird]

The 1st Court case is tommorow wed 26th May and should have outcome by end of June.

However the EU logged a 2nd Court case seeing financial compensation as guess they spent more money buying 2nd dose pfizer at higher price.
The 2nd Court case won't be until late September.

AZ saying very little. Be interesting see how this pans out.
Hope it means a better relationship between eu and uk going forward.
It will settle the endless speculation and political tit for tat having a legal judgement.
EU still want AZ vaccines immediately.
But without INDIA exporting I don't know how az Sweden can magic up such large numbers.

www.reuters.com/world/europe/new-eu-legal-case-against-astrazeneca-over-vaccine-supplies-gets-underway-2021-05-11/

indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-why-has-the-eu-initiated-legal-action-against-astrazeneca-7291254/

Az chief said uk always had priority

www.politico.eu/article/astrazeneca-pascal-soriot-uk-priority-access-coronavirus-vaccine/

Bangladesh have made a request to uk and USA for az doses so they can 2nd dose vaccinate as any supplies from India halted.

No idea whats happening with Australia and AZ as was meant to be made there.
But we know supplied fro Europe 250k were seized from Italy by the the EU.
But AZ uk have shipped quietly to Australia.

We know despite EU claiming export ban the UK has sent pfizer components and the USA has either sent vaccines or raw materials to AZ EU sites so reprocity does exist between UK/ USA I some form so EU saying we hoarding stuff and blocking is simply not true.

If some EU countries not using AZ under 50s I wonder how much EU think they needs surely not their original order.
Seems Johnson and Johnson is being rolled out in the EU despite maybe sharing same risks as AZ.

I read there were seven booster vaccines being trialled in the UK one of which is pfizer.

[quote MRex]@jasjas1973 - the UK has a very much larger Indian population due to shared language and the Commonwealth. The UK had more flights from India; not just families but business too, there are a lot of IT industry links in particular. Covid seeded in the UK from Spain last February/March and in the summer with a new variant too.

Sometimes it's really just as simple as number of travellers

The additional genome testing in the UK helps to highlight more cases too.[/quote]
UK stopped travel from Pakistan and Bangladesh, without any problems, long before India... Trade deal talks?

Johnson was told weeks before he did, to stop flights, he refused, plenty of threads on here too

Yes, CV did indeed, we don't seem to be able to control our borders or operate track n test or enforce isolation.

UK has 1.45m Indians, the EU 1m, USA 3.5m, UEA 2m.... yet uniquely, the UK manages to let in new variants with alarming regularity.

Spain is starting to find more and more cases of the Indian variant. It isn’t the same as rhe uk levels , yet. But it’s not Indian variant free and there is less people vaccinated

@EasterIssland

Spain is starting to find more and more cases of the Indian variant. It isn’t the same as rhe uk levels , yet. But it’s not Indian variant free and there is less people vaccinated

Yes, i think another lockdown is inevitable.... subject to how well the vaccines work and how the this variant hits younger people who would at best have had 1 dose and in europe none.

Portugal saying they will review uk tourism in the next days.

I don’t think the locations should necessarily have been an issue. They are all sensible locations. But despite all manufacturer’s having teething/supply issues AZ really do seem to have got themselves into a mess that other manufacturer’s seem to have avoided (so far).

At one point they must have had
USA - sitting doing nothing, not approved for use in US, but not able to export to use anywhere else, inluding Canada/Mexico/ rest of Americas.
U.K. - for some reason being used almost exclusively to supply uk
India - used for developing world. Some went to SA before they had to abandon AZ. And at some point someone activated the clause that diverted some of the Serum Institute vaccine to the U.K. The Indian government eventually banned export.
Australia - wasn’t at the time set up and producing.
EU - supplying EU and basically everywhere else that AZ had promised vaccines to but couodn’t supply.

I wonder if they just over promised and were unlucky with some of the export bans. I can see why AZ wouldn’t want to do this again, but I can also see why VDL said what she did about not supplying countries manufacturing their own vaccines but not reciprocating. However ill-advised that was.

I’m pretty sure Oxford are working on a booster that covers the SA variant. I think I read it was expected to be ready in October.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

I’m pretty sure Oxford are working on a booster that covers the SA variant. I think I read it was expected to be ready in October.

That variant isn't very transmissible, levels still very low.

Plus any booster takes 7 or 8 months to get out into the population, can the NHS keep doing this and still do the other things we need?

..and what about the other variants that will come our way?

I don’t think the booster is just for the U.K. so might be useful elsewhere. Particularly those countries where SA variant is dominant and who can’t use the current AZ vaccine. We don’t have a very good record with managing to suppress variants here. Last I heard the SA variant was still increasing in number here albeit slowly. Potentially a problem given the proportion of people given AZ here, but like,y to be solved by whatever we end up doing to support our much more pressing variant issue.

I doubt it’s a sustainable way for the NHS to work but I’m not sure what the other options are for the moment.

I'm hoping the court case

Will clear up some questions as agree the whole process not been very transparent.

Surely other European countries banning brits is a fallacy an illusion being safer.
If we do think both vaccines block transmission and holiday makers of had 2 vaccines surely they the safest.
There was so much mid slinging especially France and German that pesky British varient.
Now they banning us because we might bring the Indian varient in.
But soon eu countries already got the India varient and just don't have same level of genomic testing.
Think France has something like 10 to 15% South African or Brazilian varient.
Germany has India varient.
Most if 1st wave and 2nd wave covid infections i think came via europe not directly Chinese travelling to UK.
Many tourists last year brought new strains of covid back with them.
Be interesting to see if Portugal and Spain do a u turn on British tourists.
Also can anyone explain Portugal they were really bad at one point and close links to Brazil so UK closed flight from Brazil and Portugal.
How have they got covid under control .
Are the Portuguese doing well with vaccines.
Greece has done fairly well throughout compared to other member states.
Covid levels is some eu countries are still lot higher than UK.

Least Sanofi is closer to being ready and that will help Europe if that happens
inews.co.uk/news/health/glaxosmithkline-sanofi-covid-19-vaccine-close-success-1022432

Also do we summise as Sanofi is part British company gsk that the vaccine taskforce for UK invested loads in it.
Also gsk is working with German curevac.
We know Germany personally invested in curevac .

I think its hard to disentangle Investment and risk from paying for vaccines .
I don't know if eu pooled investment money from every member states ir I suspect just a few member states made individual Investment separate to the EU.
We know the Dutch government dident invest.
I suspect that uk France and Germany have stumped up most of pharmaceutical Investment money and the other countries have befenefited.
I dread to think of the uk total bill for vaccines ie cost of purchases plus Investments its probably a scary figure.
However every cloud ☁️ has silver lining as as much as thiery breton eu vaccine task force tried to be little the uk in the fact we small we don't make much.
But by end 2020 we would have least 3 vaccines being manufactured and sold here.
We supply major component for pfizer via croda in Yorkshire.
We help and lead rest of the world with genome sequencing.
So we must have massively increased pharmaceutical industry in uk and science bases jobs with testing and sequencing.
We also done so many vaccine trials in the UK.
The EU don't want to admit the UK despite being a small nation has played a key part in fighting covid.
We can't control our borders for shit but the vaccines is something we have done well not only the rollout but the procurement we had great relationship with so many vaccine companies which will bring much needed jobs to the UK.
By end of year we should be producing 700million plus vaccines in the UK.
I suspect many if them 2nd gen boosters and more successful with other varients.

Surely other European countries banning brits is a fallacy an illusion being safer.

Probably and many of their rates are much higher than the UK and they don't do enough genomic sequencing to really know how its spreading I'm their country.

But as a Brit I welcome it. The fewer people coming in / out of the UK over the next few months the better.

Yes, I'm the same, no issue with other countries keeping UK citizens out. I appreciate every country will be doing what best suits them in any case, and that isn't necessarily what would best suit in the UK. Each country has different advantages and disadvantages in managing the pandemic, so they need to each decide how best to play to their strengths. I would find it troubling to be in a country which locked-down blocks in the case of China, or closed borders where citizens can't get home nor leave in the case of Australia. I would find it troubling also to have had the outright covid denial with lack of planning in Tanzania or Brazil. Everyone else with a middle ground approach - meh, they're each doing their best with successes and losses everywhere. Even if approaches look tokenistic, they might serve a wider purpose of impressing upon people the continuing risks of covid.

UK stopped travel from Pakistan and Bangladesh, without any problems, long before India... Trade deal talks?
South Africa variant percentage in those countries being picked up was high at the time, it was mentioned multiple times. It helps of course that the UK has less trade reliance; closing borders has a much higher impact with close trading partners and neighbours.

@MRex

UK stopped travel from Pakistan and Bangladesh, without any problems, long before India... Trade deal talks? South Africa variant percentage in those countries being picked up was high at the time, it was mentioned multiple times. It helps of course that the UK has less trade reliance; closing borders has a much higher impact with close trading partners and neighbours.

SA isn't the variant of concern, cases extremely low.

How much trade does the UK do with India? not stopping flights earlier, was gross negligence.

But back on topic, the AZ case will presumably clear up whether the EU was correct in its original contract concerns or not.

South Africa is absolutely a variant of concern. One reason it isn't spreading is surge testing, the same approach being used now for India variant.

On boosters, the trials may be showing that volume of antibodies matters most for each variant. If that's the case then tweaks aren't needed, just third shots and possibly only for a proportion of people identified as having low immunity. Caveat that this may be entirely my own incorrect interpretation of bits of info, the actual booster trial papers haven't come out yet. The AZ third booster was reported recently to give a really massive antibody increase, so the fears of adenovirus vector immunity didn't come about.

How much trade does the UK do with India?
A lot. They are particularly important for imports, including basic pharmaceuticals such as paracetamol. Almost all of those on flights back were UK residents, we would have had to repatriate them anyway at far greater cost and inconvenience. I appreciate you're concerned about a variant spreading, but there's no need to be dismissive of the great strategic importance of India to the UK and vice versa. I don't understand why you don't think India is or should be important to the UK?

@MRex

How much trade does the UK do with India? A lot. They are particularly important for imports, including basic pharmaceuticals such as paracetamol. Almost all of those on flights back were UK residents, we would have had to repatriate them anyway at far greater cost and inconvenience. I appreciate you're concerned about a variant spreading, but there's no need to be dismissive of the great strategic importance of India to the UK and vice versa. I don't understand why you don't think India is or should be important to the UK?

Economics over health.... which is what has cost us so much ever since this started.

If we'd locked down earlier (India) less people would have flown out, less would have returned.
The costs of hotel isolation are tiny compared to LD's Its was approx 20k people, hardly insurmountable.

Doing so wouldn't stop supplies of drugs etc unless India went tit for tat? maybe that was the concern.... in which case "what a trading partner"

This variant is very transmissible, its doubled in just a few days, according to the Govt, 75% of new cases, is on a trajectory similar to last winters UK variant, which cost 80k lives.

Yes we have vaccines but only 45% fully vaccinated, IV has potential to put us back in a full LD.

Even Govt see this as threatening the 21st June date.

UK/India trade is 23billion, compared to 83 billion with France alone.

@jasjas1973

UK/India trade is 23billion, compared to 83 billion with France alone.

Of course we trade with France, it doesn't diminish the importance of France to say that India is strategically important. That isn't a comparison that works because the UK has been very slow to reduce travel to France as well.

India is the second largest foreign investor in the UK and in reverse India has 700,000 workers employed by UK companies. The services industry is large and growing, while UK expansion into life sciences brings a host of mutual benefit opportunities. It's really worth reading a bit about UK and India before dismissing it as though it's just the same as Bangladesh. Would you say that Mexico is just as important to UK as the USA, or would you appreciate that there are closer ties with USA?

@jasjas1973

UK/India trade is 23billion, compared to 83 billion with France alone.

So our trading with uk france is greater? Probably why uk wants trade deal with India.

Random question not heard much about AZ booster.
Is that also a collaboration with Oxford University ?
Do we think it will be lower cost doubt not for profit given all that's gone on but cheaper than say a pfizer booster.
As for some countries/ eu member states that are less affluent cost is an important factor.
Moderna and pfzier are much more expensive..
Be interesting turn of events if AZ booster is successful and in demand and they say to EU sorry we don't want to sign a new contract with you.
Or are EU happy burning their bridges as many other vaccines to choose from as sanofi and curevac hopefully come online but they failed to do a deal with valneva and novavax.
Seeing the poor protection Chinese and Russian vaccines has given in chille and Seychelles the eu would be cautious about both especially Russia playing dirty tricks and political games.

Theey say az but great with Brazilian or south African.
We have less travel and trace I guess with South Africa or Brazil where as India we have close ties.
They say vaccines OK with India varient but concerning how fast its spread .
They only just started surge vaccinating that may not work as takes 3 weeks take effect .

I don't think foreign holidays should be allowed in or out of UK until everyone vaccinated.

EU have already said they're done with AZ. They'll just boost with another. At this stage it looks possible that a third boost of the same vaccine might be enough, and it seems likely that the main vaccines will all be effective at that point.

Surge testing will find more cases, Jenny Harries suggested the situation was that surge testing may be finding more cases rather than deteriorating. We'll all have to wait to see.

@MRex

EU have already said they're done with AZ. They'll just boost with another. At this stage it looks possible that a third boost of the same vaccine might be enough, and it seems likely that the main vaccines will all be effective at that point.

Surge testing will find more cases, Jenny Harries suggested the situation was that surge testing may be finding more cases rather than deteriorating. We'll all have to wait to see.

But what about people in Europe who has 2 shots AZ won't they want a AZ booster? Or is mixing vaccines considered fine..as pfizer and az different types of vaccine.

Not enough trials yet to know, but it's probably fine, we do it all the time with flu, rabies, hep A and other shots. The trials of mixing second doses so far showed more side effects, but nothing serious and that approach could lead to stronger immunity, we don't know yet. When it's done with a very long interval the side effects might be less of an issue.

I'm not dismissing our trade with India, but its very small fry in terms of LD costs and our slowness in locking down travel to/fro India may lead to a further one or slowing down coming out of the present one.

But it seems that your POV is also what the GOvt thinks, which goes some way to explain why we have done so badly and it looks like we have just repeated the mistakes we made previously.

As the value of trade with France/EU, the Govt has shown its quite happy to wreck that for political gain.