Will Brexit delay the vaccine supplies?

[MrsMigginsMate]

Not sure if this should be in Brexit or Coronavirus....

What does everyone think will happen to vaccine supplies after Brexit? The Pfizer one isn't manufactured here, do we think there will be delays? Are there ways around the potential shipping delays?

@BasinHaircut

Do you not think that someone is already thinking about this?

You'd have thought so. However we're now just weeks from the exit date & there's almost nothing in place. They've had nearly half a decade to sort Brexit (in addition to the planning that should have happened prior to the referendum).

Am I right in thinking the Oxford vax, if approved, will be manufactured in the uk under licence from AZ? Hopefully, cos I can't see us successfully importing anything in the first few months of 2021.

AZ is manufacturing the Oxford vaccine and the Novavax vaccine is manufactured in the UK as well.

From what I understand vaccine supplies should be ok post brexit as they will be prioritised and flown in or produced in the uk. Supplies of general medical items, PPE, medicines on the other hand have the potential to be severely disrupted and may cause issues for those administering the vaccines.

It will most likely come by air, I used to work at a pharma CRO and samples used to come by air packed in dry ice

@ListeningQuietly

I'm not arguing with you.

The OP asked a question
I tried to answer it and put it in the context of the impact on all medicines

Brexit is a shitshow

and the US vaccine that can be transported at -18 may turn out to be the better bet

Ah OK. Sorry. Long day, headache. Totally agree.

The Pfizer vaccine will be used, but I can’t see it working for small remote clinics etc. The AZ one, which has been reported as being a normal 2-8 vaccine, will be much easier to handle.

The other problem is getting the mass vaccination programme up and running efficiently.

That is being discussed but complications include how GP practices will fund additional staff, indemnity, priority, how other centres will be run and by whom.
If it’s as efficient as Dido Harding/Serco track and trace, Brexit will be just one more disaster to overcome.

@WhentheDealGoesDown , You are assuming that there's no problem with paperwork.

That is being discussed but complications include how GP practices will fund additional staff, indemnity, priority, how other centres will be run and by whom.

I heard this on the radio yesterday;

"St John Ambulance has confirmed it has been approached to potentially train up volunteers to administer a coronavirus vaccine."

"Last month the rules over who can give a vaccine were extended to include independent nurses, allied healthcare professionals, paramedics, physiotherapists, pharmacists and student nurses and doctors."

"At the time, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "These legal changes will help us in doing everything we can to make sure we are ready to roll out a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it has passed clinical trials and undergone rigorous checks by the regulator."

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-volunteers-with-no-medical-background-could-administer-coronavirus-jab-reports-12134400

It will most likely come by air

"Matt Hancock told BBC Question Time on Thursday: "We have a plan for the vaccine which is being manufactured in Belgium, and if necessary we can fly in order to avoid those problems."

“We’ve got a plan for all eventualities,” he added.

More ferry contracts (although I am aware that Felixstowe is currently dealing with excess PPE containers) -

October 2020;
"Four ferry companies have been handed government contracts worth a total of £77.6 million to provide post-Brexit freight capacity."

"The Department for Transport has announced that it has signed agreements with Brittany Ferries, DFDS, P&O Ferries and Stena Line."

"This will ensure that vital medical supplies and other critical goods “continue to be smoothly delivered into the UK whatever the outcome of negotiations with the EU”, the DfT said."

"The contracts will be in place for up to six months after the Brexit transition period ends on December 31."

"The agreements secure freight capacity on nine routes serving eight English ports “in areas less likely to experience disruption.”

"These are Felixstowe, Harwich, Hull, Newhaven, Poole, Portsmouth, Teesport and Tilbury."

"The contracts were awarded using the Government’s freight capacity framework which involves a shortlist of “experienced freight operators” entering bids."

"Should the freight capacity not be required, termination costs “would reflect a fraction of the full contract amount”, the DfT said."

"There are concerns about potential delays to cross-Channel trade at major ports such as Dover and Folkestone from January 1."

"A solution is seen as sending freight up the coast to northern ports, where capacity isn’t as pressured, and much of the cargo arrives closer to the end destination."

www.business-live.co.uk/ports-logistics/new-776m-brexit-ferry-contracts-19095077

A solution is seen as sending freight up the coast to northern ports, where capacity isn’t as pressured, and much of the cargo arrives closer to the end destination.

Not a particularly good solution for time-sensitive vaccine supplies though?

I was hoping you were going to come on here with the details of these vaccine transport boxes.

I was hoping you were going to come on here with the details of these vaccine transport boxes.

Does this help?
"Watch out COVID-19! The vaccine will arrive safely."

"As the world races to find a vaccine solution to the COVID-19 pandemic, we want to let our biopharmaceutical partners know that we are here to ensure the safest, strongest and cleanest solution for delivering this vital product to the people who need it most. We have a customer support system implemented to move from the planning stages through production in a timely manner. We are ready!"

"10L PC PharmaTainer™ gamma irradiated bottles were filled to nominal volume and frozen to -80C for 2 days"...

pharmatainer.cellon.lu/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpa_R-aqM7QIVh63tCh1apgswEAAYASAAEgJfIPD_BwE

Nicola has bought some 'big fridges' -

news.stv.tv/scotland/big-fridges-ready-for-covid-vaccine-rollout-in-scotland

Don't know if i'm being naive here but surely this is bigger than EU V Britain, this is a worldwide battle and we need to put any other things aside to get these vaccines out.
I'm hoping that is how everyone is working on this

"Matt Hancock told BBC Question Time on Thursday: "We have a plan for the vaccine which is being manufactured in Belgium, and if necessary we can fly in order to avoid those problems."

Best they come up with an agreement over airspace and flights as the current one expires at the end of the transition..... and last time I checked Belgium was in the EU...checks notes

Yahoo Finance;

“We don’t expect to be sitting on doses,” said Tanya Alcorn, vice president of Pfizer’s Biopharma Global Supply division."

"In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, she also noted that the company has ongoing stability studies to see if the vaccines can remain in the freezers for longer without spoiling."

"The vaccines will be moved from the freezers to innovative shipping boxes with continuous GPS monitoring approved by the approved by the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure the temperature remains controlled to their point of use."

"Rather than rely on the federal government’s distribution process, the company is directly delivering vaccines to the health systems and other priority recipients using shipping companies FedEx and UPS. The shipping containers use dry ice, which can be replaced, to maintain the ultra-cold temperature of -70 degrees Celsius for up to 15 days."

Best they come up with an agreement over airspace and flights as the current one expires at the end of the transition..... and last time I checked Belgium was in the EU...checks notes

They'll use RAF who can continue flying under NATO auspices

(I posted earlier in the thread about other aspects of military suitability for the logistics)

A clip from Pfizer on BBC this morning showed 12 of the cold boxes on a pallet. I think that's 58,500 doses per pallet. So 684 pallets for 40m doses. 23 pallets a night for a month. They seem to be saying that these boxes can be handled as if it was ambient freight.

The logistics involved in getting that into the country and distributed to (for example) a 10 depot regional distribution hub network is pretty trivial. Onward delivery from those hubs to 30 different local destinations each is also trivial. The transport side of it could literally be arranged in a couple of hours, ready for goods arriving today.

If it was merely a matter of delivering a complete box of 5,000 doses to 276 different delivery points every morning then, again, that's pretty trivial to organise.

It's not the transport that's the challenge, it's getting those boxes of 5,000 doses each either split up into batches that are a useful size and distributed to whoever's administering them, or getting them back into -80 storage facilities.

...and then organising the vaccinations of course.

Not interested not taking it anyway. Can't see the point it won't stop the virus's mutating and coming back. Average of 18000 die a year from the common flu and the vaccine hasn't eradicated that!!!

Except over a million have died from
covid compared to 18,000 from flu.

@titchy

Except over a million have died from covid compared to 18,000 from flu.

That's not a fair comparison.

With worldwide lockdowns, and in less than a year Covid-19 is known to have killed at least 1.34M worldwide.

Flu typically kills 0.5M a year but in pandemic years that goes up to 1-2M. Spanish Flu killed 50M in 1918-19.