Why is EU getting Moderna jab before UK when UK purportedly placed its order first?

[LimitIsUp]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/hundreds-of-thousands-a-day-to-get-covid-vaccine-as-johnson-promises-huge-acceleration-wflqg8xjk

I have linked to the source article in the Times Online but there is a pay wall so it may not be possible to access it without a subscription.

The article says:

"The jab, which trials suggest is 95 per cent effective, was approved this week by the EU medical regulator and Moderna said that European countries would receive their first deliveries next week. Britain will have to wait until later in the year, despite having placed its order before the EU".

What's this about then? Is it a Brexit consequence (now that we are a little powerless minnow)?

Doesn't seem very fair

Not sure if I should have put this under the Coronavirus topic, but its in the news so I put it under News

Or maybe it should have gone under Brexit

Apologies in anticipation of a telling off from Mn prefects

Well its whatever the deal the UK govt made with Moderna and the EU too.

Would the UK be able to use it straight away? They are using Pfizer & AZ.

EU has only got Pfizer at the moment so probably has more need.

I wouldn't get all het up about it. Why did Israel get more Pfizer- its all down to the deals struck.

We have millions of Pfizer doses to use, many millions of the Oxford vaccines ready to roll, the Johnson and Johnson one shot vaccine that, fingers crossed, will be approved and ready by the end of February and the Moderna vaccine from April. I mean, that seems fine to me. Another needy, fragile, super-frozen two-dose vaccine seems less logistically expedient right now.

I imagine the UK could use it straight away - wouldn't be eeking out vaccines by giving only one dose otherwise. Availability of the vaccine is one the the "lumps and bumps" in the process that Johnson described yesterday in the vaccine roll out programme.

Am not particularly het up about it - more a case of wanting to know more

www.ft.com/content/d97c72c5-ed23-4c2b-bf1c-9cc10b21f007

^^ an article about availability of vaccines and below a quote from the article

"The UK’s chief medical officers have warned that the availability of Covid-19 vaccines will continue to be a problem for “several months” as they defended the decision to lengthen the gap between doses to try and combat spiralling infection rates".

Not sure why anyone would think we have many millions of the Pfizer and Oxford vaccine ready to roll

Limits its not necessarily the vaccine or volumes of it that are the problem.

Its getting it into the glass vials and distributed out.

And where do we magic up all the people to give 4 million vaccines a week?

2 million 1st dose & 2 million 2nd dose.

It would be irresponsible of the UK to take it when other countries could use it.

Yes, I've read about the glass vials issue too being a limiting factor (and each batch of vaccine needing laboratory testing before distribution), however regarding the "where do we magic up all the people to give 4 million vaccines a week?", I think we have aspirations to do 2 million vaccines per week and are not achieving this yet due to supply side contraints? Its hard to unpick what the issue is but I've seen a news report from a large vaccination facility saying that they were ready and able to scale up but needed more vaccine. Its a complex process though

I also thought the EU had ordered the vaccine before us but I can't say for sure.

Maybe that's the case. This could just be sloppy journalism

BBC reporting expected supplies of Moderna to be with us by spring.

The procurement dictates the delivery date.

Clearly the EU requested and negotiated an earlier delivery date than the UK. That could be because we wanted to progress with the others first, because of the timing of the order, the price we're willing to pay and/or size of the order - I'd expect the EU is ordering a lot more than we are ...

Yes, I'm surprised to hear that the UK government ordered Moderna before the EU did. I thought the UK government was very late to the party on that one. I wonder too if the Times has got it wrong.

Why
Maybe because the EU approved it before the MHRA did? Maybe orders are fulfilled in order of approval rather than when the deal was struck or else we’d have moderna vaccines we couldn’t use til they’d been approved and the EU would be waiting even though they’d approved it and are ready to use it.

Despite the Germans admitting it will take them to the summer to be at the same rate of vaccination as the UK. The reality is we have vaccinated more people than the rest of the EU put together and deliveries to the UK are 2million a WEEK ! The EU have admitted they have been too slow and are in catch up mode. The media across Europe are up in arms. So I really don’t know what the fuck you are banging on about.

So I really don’t know what the fuck you are banging on about
Eh?

@Pyewhacket

Despite the Germans admitting it will take them to the summer to be at the same rate of vaccination as the UK. The reality is we have vaccinated more people than the rest of the EU put together and deliveries to the UK are 2million a WEEK ! The EU have admitted they have been too slow and are in catch up mode. The media across Europe are up in arms. So I really don’t know what the fuck you are banging on about.

And I really don't know why the fuck you are being so aggressive

I think Robert Peston has raised this issue before, last September - afair the EU had agreed to buy it (but I don't know whether that was a formal order/contract, which may be what is referred to here?) in the summer, before the UK ordered it.

And I really don't know why the fuck you are being so aggressive

Because a lot of people seem to like screaming Bad Boris and evil Tories regardless of the facts

Brexit

The EU vaccination programme has been a shambles from start to finish.

Whatever we say about the government’s place in this pandemic, they are getting the vaccination programme right. It’s never going to go off without any complications, but the EU has been an absolute disaster by comparison.

Because a lot of people seem to like screaming Bad Boris and evil Tories regardless of the facts

But it is fact that Boris is bad and the Tories are evil........