Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Following the recently announced failure of French vaccine trials, the EU appears to have panicked, and is attempting to seize vaccines made under contract for the UK. They are even demanding vaccines physically manufactured in Britain be sent to Europe. The UK contract was reportedly signed three months before the EU contract.
EU Bureaucrats Try to Seize UK-Made Vaccines After Covid Failures
VICTORIA FRIEDMAN
28 Jan 2021The European Union, which failed to secure early production of coronavirus vaccines, is demanding that UK-made AstraZeneca doses produced for Britons be sent to Europe instead.
Earlier this week, the European Commission threatened to halt the export of vaccines made in Europe produced under a UK contract, after both drugs companies Pfizer and AstraZeneca revealed a delay in delivery to the EU market due to production problems in Belgium.
While Eurocrats sought to blame AstraZeneca and alleged that it was favouring the UK as a customer, the company’s CEO revealed that the UK had a contract in place three months before the bloc, and implied Brussels bureaucracy was to blame for the lack of progress with successful vaccine production.
Now, in order to make up for the bloc’s shortfall, the EU is demanding that not only are exports of the drugs forbidden but that millions of vaccines made in the UK by the joint British AstraZeneca-Oxford venture — under the British government’s contract, meant for Britons — be sent to Europe, according to The Telegraph.
…
The Eurocrat said: “Not being able to ensure manufacturing capacity is against the letter and the spirit of our agreement. We reject the logic of ‘first come, first served’. That may work at the neighbourhood butchers, but not in contracts. And not in our advanced purchase agreements.”
…
Peter Liese, of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said: “We have to show our weapons… we need to tell other companies in the world, if you treat the Europeans as second class you will suffer for this.”
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Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/01/28/eu-bureaucrats-try-to-seize-uk-made-vaccines-after-covid-failures/
Thanks to President Trump, the US is unlikely to be directly impacted by this geopolitical ugliness. A priority of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was that US vaccines be manufactured in the USA.
They’re an evil spiteful bunch and I’m so glad we are out if the EU. Totally incompetent.
We shall see if you really are out. The Germans know who is in charge 😉
France?
Frances’ government couldn’t charge a battery.
A large stock of incompetence, a generous sprinkling of butt covering, a pinch of corruption, all mixed together with a dollop of general contempt for the population = Gâteau de Macron.
Frances’ government don’t need to charge a battery – they have nuclear
….but for how much longer?
From the PPE (a road map/recommendations publication for the government):
4 to 6 nuclear reactors closed by 2028 including those of
Fessenheim.
Closure of 14 nuclear reactors by 2035, to reduce to 50% share of nuclear electricity in the electricity mix.
…. did I mention incompetence?
Perhaps this is indicative of incompetence, but I’d suggest that they’ve operated their reactors quite effectively for decades. It’s necessary to retire reactors once the costs for upkeep exceed the value they generate. Plus, there are newer models being built and being designed that could be more valuable in the long term.
Further, French engineers are quite competent, even if their approach is often very different than their US and German peers. I guess I’m saying, don’t judge the average Joe in France (or, should I say, “Jacque”), nor confuse/conflate him with the government “elites” who are eerily similar to our Ivy League betters that’ve so thoroughly infected our own government.
rip
I don’t see in my comments where I have confused or conflated the two, quite the opposite in fact.
My criticism is of short sighted ideologically driven technocrats naively chasing CO² unicorns for Brownie points, whilst simultaneously destroying an existing “green” and reliable system of electricity production.
“Plus, there are newer models being built and being designed that could be more valuable in the long term.”
Cue ColMosby…
This is true. However there are no plans to replace older types with newer nuclear reactors. There are plans to increase wind farms and solar panels though. Make of that what you will.
Ya.. but if it were up to Macron…it wouldn’t.
Let’m eat cake.
That worked so well before for France’s ruling elite!
Now now…one should never mistreat a European
They should be treated with the respect they deserve…like Turd Class Citizens
Maybe be a bit more respectful: “Thurd Class citizens”
They showed their weapons in 1914, and they showed their weapons in 1939, and it did not end well for them either time.
but this time a woman is in charge …
Actually Peter, the last NATO stores audit shows your woefully understocked.
And if it gets ugly they’ll surrender
The UK imports about €22B of German cars each year. Not far behind the US and China. The Germans know which side their bread is buttered.
hmm how well will UK manufacturing do if french/eu halt imported power??
I wish they would. It might shake the UK out of its renewable energy downward spiral.
“Cut them off! Brexiteer highlights trade masterplan to completely turn tables on EUA BREXITEER has called for Britain to ends its reliance on European Union imports after the bloc threatened to block exports of coronavirus jabs.”
“”We need to think about providing more of our own energy too.””
Sir John Redwood, former cabinet minister under John Major.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1389556/brexit-news-eu-uk-trade-john-redwood-twitter-eu-vaccine-eu-block-vaccine
Maybe that is why Boris the Butcher is pishing more twards nuclear as well?
Won’t make any difference. The French interconnector is 3GW maximum…we’re drawing 2.8GW at the moment, with some 20GW of UK capacity to go until maxed-out. Its main use is balancing, plus it is part of the energy-economy…its cheaper to use theirs than ours. And still got a few GW of pumped-storage for peak times…so, no problem.
Putin.
Putin? He controls all the natural gas pipelines that Germany relies on to supplement their failing wind and solar infrastructure after they shuttered their nuclear power plants. Watching a self-imposed disaster unfold is morbidly fascinating.
Jerusalem
Good Luck with that.
They are typical elites who think they know what is best for everyone else, and given the power to do so, will use the police power of government to enforce their mandates and edicts.
UK can be thankful for getting out the EUSR (European Union of Socialist Republics). The bureaucrats in Brussels are no more competent than the bureaucrats in 1950’s Moscow and the USSR.
The EU was never a good idea. Such centralized government without representation always eventually fails. It is soon learned that the best jobs are in the bureaucracy because they’re protected from the fluctuations of economics.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the “Common Market” was just laughed at in Britain.
“It’ll be worse once we join the Common Market.”
“That nice Mr. Heath would never allow that!”
h/t Monty Python.
Not sure this is the best one, but you get the idea … classic Brit Humor when a sense of humour was still allowed and satirical wit strove to serve feelings en brochette …
Yes Minister explains the EEC (EU) – YouTube
You missed selfish narcissists…
Well, there are a lot of other similar words that describe them, none of them mean nice or intelligent.
Well, yes, #45 (The Donald) mandated that vaccines be manufactured in the US. #0 (Faux Joe) probably can’t change that one to Red China, much as he would like to.
But where those vaccines are sent – now, that is something he and his handlers have already discussed. Once the Blue States have been issued three or four times the amount needed (to offset the wastage as they let most of the doses rot in warehouses), the rest are likely to be sent out of the country.
They may have a “better” use: they heat the unused doses up so that the mRNA is no longer encapsulated, thus highly toxic, and then distribute it to the red states for vaccinations…
Eric, that comment is unacceptable.
its no less probable than the chemist who repeatedly let vax stay on a counter and doses WERE given to people from the overwarm batches
How is that different from demanding that Trump supporters be de-programmed?
Didn’t see that one but no real difference.
No, Novavax of Maryland conducted their trials in the UK and intend to manufacture there too at least according to the Times
UK production of Novavax is planned on Teesside (local to me), apparently the former ICI site at Billingham now run by Fujifilm, but not producing yet.. Reports are that production can be ramped up to 180 million doses (presumably annually) there. They also have a plant in the Czech Republic, and I presume the main production will be in America. It appears that their strategy is to produce regionally in plants allowing for localised distribution.
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/made-teesside-300-workers-start-19725106
Pfizer is a US company too, but they have plants outside US, , but but not development under the socilist warp speed program
Tut tut. This reads like an item in the UK lying-toad tabloid press who badger everything EU-ish. Even now that the UK has left; you wonder if they are short of other peoples to hate.
The EU is annoyed that Astra Zenica can’t deliver fully on their contractual commitments. AZ claims production or logistical problems, which is likely true. But the fact is that the shortfall has mucked up
the vaccination operation, in particular in e.g. Spain. So they asked if some additional supplies can
be sourced from the UK production lines. If that is not on the cards then they want to switch to the
Pfizer vaccine, which is produced in Belgium, that is in the EU itself. It is called ‘taking back control’.
I don’t think ‘asked’ is the correct term.
Anyway, they can have all the Pfizer stuff because of the storage and distribution and cost problems associated with maintaining a temperature of -70C.
No, Ed, they didn’t ”ask if some additional supplies can be sourced from the U.K.”. Without any attempt at politeness or pleasantries, nor with a legal or moral leg to stand on, they demanded huge amounts of U.K. manufactured vaccines with menaces.
it clearly hurts the EU that the U.K. is so very far ahead in vaccine production, distribution and delivery, not least because we turned down their ever-so-kind offer to join their Europe-wide scheme to deliver such. The EU bureaucracy has been seriously found out over this, so they are looking for someone to blame and the U.K. will do. All signals at the moment are pointing to the U.K. – politely- telling the EU to get stuffed, and quite rightly so. We invested huge amounts in the vaccine developments and, rightly, we are reaping the rewards.
Check above, I put link there. UK is selling AstraZeneca (UK/Swedish) funded also by EU vaccine produced in EU factories UK and worldwide, same time not fulfilling their contract with EU.
You showed yourself.
The link you posted has this quote: ““We reject the logic of first come, first served”
Of course they reject that logic. But if they had been first they would be saying the exact opposite.
It doesn’t matter *where* the contract terms are fulfilled. The UK acted faster and risked their money first. It’s like someone opening a shoe store next to another shoe store that was there first and then saying “But I deserve to have some of your customers, the fact you were here first means nothing”.
Never forgetting that It is a joint venture between AZ and Oxford Univ.
“An agreement between Oxford University and AstraZeneca means we are prepared to produce and scale up distribution of the vaccine if it is successful. We will be working closely with our partners and the British government to ensure the vaccine is made available as quickly and fairly as possible and in sufficient quantities to vaccinate the entire UK population. As part of our agreement with AstraZeneca we are ensuring that *those countries who are most vulnerable to the worst effects of this global pandemic have early access to a vaccine*.
They can include the EU then!
https://www.research.ox.ac.uk/Article/2020-07-19-the-oxford-covid-19-vaccine
Now that the EU have published the Astra Zeneca contract it can be seen to state that AZ will use ‘best reasonable efforts’ to meet the schedule from from ‘manufacture within the EU’. Seemingly inserted because the EU wanted it to be manufactured within the EU rather than in the UK.
Not quite how the EU portray it as they struggle to obscure their own failures.
Of course the problem is that the Belgian plant has had difficulty in getting up to speed and I suspect that hasn’t been helped by the EU taking 3 months to make up its mind about ordering from AZ. None of the EU’s ‘deliberations’ were helped by the French insistence that the vaccine should be manufactured and supplied by a French company, a company which it now appears is unable to do so.
It is all rather pathetic of the EU , but it has highlighted how bureaucratically inefficient they are and how politically they want to blight and damage the UK as much as they can.
Bureaucratic Hegemony”s eventually become so clogged up that it is impossible for them to react in a timely manner. The EU has already reached that point and so has the US. The BH represents the cholesterol clogging up the veins in your body, they both do the same thing – inhibit survival.
All you have to do is look at what the BH in the Soviet Union turned into. China is the same, the only way China has advanced is by stealing from the true innovators around the world.
We have a saying here that ‘the soup is never eaten as hot as it is served’. That applies.
Probably not the best comment to use around the Pfizer vaccine!
SO the EU should force Pfizer to break its contract with the UK, because AZ cant meet its contract with the EU?
You know what you are proposing is illegal?
Jeez you can’t even admit to the Usual EUROBULLIES attacking the UK when it is this clear?
I suggest to change your newspaper.
I don’t bother with the propaganda rags and rely on seeing what is actually taking place. same with the EU funded news channels.
I’m confident he changes your news paper from the bottom of his bird’s cage as required.
“The EU is annoyed that Astra Zenica can’t deliver fully on their contractual commitments”
Not so. The details of the contract were published a couple of hours ago..
And goes on to define Best Reasonable Efforts as meaning:
No, your beloved EU is trying to cover its own incompetence.
A task on that order of magnitude is not possible. The EU is coming apart at the seams and the true believers just can’t see it.
Ed it’s unfortunate that this situation has followed hard on the heels of Brexit. I was watching a report from the former Nottinghamshire mining area, very close to my current location. These were the people who helped keep the lights on for Margaret Thatcher during the Miners Strike. These people have suffered a double whammy, particularly badly hit by the virus, and now lost the money the EU directed back to the UK for regional investment. They were promised a replacement for the money but so far, as you’d expect from a waffling bluffer there’s no even a plan yet.
The UK tabloids love the EU as a scapegoat, the problems highlighted in Project Fear when they come to pass are now the nasty EU getting back at Britain.
It saddens me that we’ve gone from reluctant membership of a cooperative group with all its faults to the first stages of a trade war. But there you that’s how wars begin.
Astrazenica aren’t contractually obliged to lift a finger until the EU approves their vaccine, which they still haven’t done. The EU stopped several countries from ordering the vaccine in June last year then delayed until August putting in an European wide order, which hasn’t allowed Astrazenica time to get a necessary supply chain organised for the volume the EU demanded. Astrazenica have told they will do their best but numbers may be lower until they can get the supply change problems sorted. This mainly just affects the Belgian Astrazenica factory – the UK factory was given adequate time to prepare a supply chain for the UK order.
Sorry just noticed read supply chain not supply change. Autocorrect again.
Several EU countries are sourcing Vaccines from outside the EU. Such is the managerial constipation in the top echelons of EU [in]decision-making.
The AZ vaccine wasn’t approved for use in the EU until yesterday so the Spanish problem is not due to the AZ plant startup.
Would the last Remainer and Brexit-blocker in the U.K. please turn the lights out before you leave for the EU paradise, hanging your head in shame.
EU paradise? That would be the most recent version of the cold war workers paradise, the USSR, would it?
But, but, Ian. The UK HAS already LEFT. How can it be blocked, then? Stop fretting about it and get on with it.
My ravings have not garnered much traction – they surely will.The reluctance in part is due to exactly what I’m raving about (Magical Thinking) but especially also that the implications are simply soooo massive.
Quote:””the EU appears to have panicked“”
Question:””Is there anywhere in the contemporary Western World that is not in a state of panic? (About the food they eat, weather & climate, Ozone, inside or outside of ‘holes’, diesel cars, what sex they are today etc etc etc)
Nice example:“”Covid: Two fined £10,000 over Leeds snowball fight“”
People are being criminalised and punitively over-fined for trying to save their own mental & physical health and sanity – and that of others.
While The Police in Leeds, in a feat of gargantuan & grotesque mendacity assert that they ‘Take No Pleasure‘ in handing out these fines.
That they even use that word means EXACTLY the opposite
Just as demented Joe talks about ‘sacrificing jobs’
Surely, ‘sacrifice’ comes from ‘sacred’ = religiosity, belief and faith in fantastical & imaginary things which, by definition, are unprovable.
Joe is pushing virgins, 10’s of thousands at a time, into a volcano in the hope of Fixing The Weather, when no-one has yet really asserted wtf is wrong with it in the first place.
Yes there are or will be Good Jobs, as the folks tasked with rounding up the virgins will find and have, but then what?
Remind me, who is Paul Ehrlich
a doubleplusgood neomalthusian doomspeaker from Western Oceania with much duckspeak. Can we name Airstrip One something else as we no longer want planes on our airstrip. There is a challenge for Ingsoc
Whatever Peta is suffering from, it appears to be progressive.
They should think themselves lucky. In my county the police are stopping people driving in town at night and having them account for where they’ve been and where they’re going!!
I generally like your posts but I think you have missed point here. The EU want the vaccines made in Britain to be given to them. And against our contract with the companies, It is straight imperialism, driven by envy. They don’t want Britain to look good so soon after Brexit.
But we have got vaccines in production here, and will have more.
With their huge population and tiresome bureaucracy their situation is going to get a lot worse. The embarrassment is just beginning.
Let us be generous to the EU. After all mostly we like their people and Belgians brew a good ale, the French make great baguettes, Germans superlative sausages etcetera besides being generous will really piss of the Brusels bureaucracy
NO NEVER. To suggest such a thing is just like a dog that is constantly kicked returning to its master. The EU still sees themselves as masters and will just keeping kicking their pet.
Once you have paid the Danegeld you will never get rid of the Danes, or in this case the EU.
The CEO of AZ is French. Difficult for him.
The contract with the UK states that the UK contract will be fulfilled before any vaccine made in the UK factory is exported.
The moderna vaccine, not yet approved, will also be manufactured in the UK in Stockton on Tees.
AZ is supplying the vaccine at cost.
French company Valneva has started manufacturing its Covid vaccine at its Scottish facility (Livingston) with UK supplies expected to be available by the end of 2021 if successful.
Not quite correct.
Astra does work – you appear to have been fooled by fake news from Germany
In AZ we trust!
According to AZ itself, the vaccine has some 60% efficacy after the first dose.
It reduces to some 15% after the second does.
my wife and I (72 yrs old in good health) are being vaccinated tomorrow. we are solitary pensioners in a habit of near self isolation even before Covid.
We would both happily give up our slot in favour of someone younger and more at risk like maybe someone having to go to work. I do trust the efficacy and safety of the vaccines and will continue to do so until I prematurely go belly up
youre both healthy n isolated why would you when the feedback on effectiveness and side effects arent very inspiring?
I and my wife have both had the Pfizer vaccine with no side effects.
You will know that in a few years.
Everything is just a probability.
Me too, or none so far anyway.
But will we get the booster after 12 weeks? And if we do, will it have any effect after so many weeks after the first shot?
Alex: you have no business posting unsubstantiated drivel like this. Clearly you have no knowledge of medical matters or molecular biology. Stop reading twaddle on the internet and social media and regurgitating it as fact.
You have to accept that to some people see the EU is a religion and is always right. Fist of all the UK is wrong for trying to honour contracts but now it is “well the vaccine doesn’t work anyway” and that from one German newspaper who have followed orders in the time honoured german fashion.
“you have no knowledge of medical matters or molecular biology”
Do you?
Just a common sense.
I do. See my comment above.
Translation, I don’t let facts change what my emotions have decided.
Alex: Another factory-troll…
Today there existst no Covid-19 vaccin. It is only after the very very recent redefintion of what a vaccin is by the WHO that gene-therapy with m-RNA also is determined to be a vaccin. What will the defintion be tomorrow?
Vaccin is named after the Frenach word for cow. Because dead cowpox was injected in humans to trigger a mild immune reaction to produce anti-bodies against smallpox, the human variant of pox.
Great going, downvoting facts. Soon we’ll have our own church !! Forgetthe facts, let’s just have a belief system, that’s worked so well in the past. /sarcasm off
Huls they are not downvoting facts just unsubstantiated and unsupported opinion that has already been debunked elsewhere. Get a grip man!
Vaccine,
noun
a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease.
Why do you think that an mRNA vaccine that stimulates antibodies and provides immunity isn’t a vaccine?
As near as I can tell, it’s not a vaccine because it’s not a cow.
I guess that makes perfectly good sense. I hadn’t thought of it that way. My bad.
Alex
In the (admittedly rushed) AZ-Oxford vaccine trial, among the vaccinated group there was a handful of covid infections but none leading to serious disease and hospitalisation.
In what sense – even German – does that mean “not working”. How can number of serious cases or your IQ for that matter – be less than zero?
They are fighting over a vaccine that they know doesn’t work?
Yes.
No body cares if it works.
It is a lot of money anyway.
Are you actually as ignorant as your brain dead comments make you sound?
The Az vaccine is the cheapest vaccine available – a price list of what the EU was paying per dose of different vaccines has recently been tweeted:
Oxford Az – €1.71 (£1.63)
Johnson & Johnson – $8.50 (£6.30)
Sanofi/GSK – €7.56
Pfizer/BioNTech – €12.00
Curevac – €10.00
Moderna – $18.00
The list has since been deleted after the Belgian minister posted it up but it is still being made available by parties that took a screenshot. Makes rather an interesting comparison doesn’t it?
No MarkW it works – there was a Euro politician attempting to blatantly undermine confidence in a rival vaccine in the vain hope that the UK government would stop using it and the EU could have started giving out a vaccine after dropping the ball repeatedly on their own. It’s unsupported lies, blatant untruths and propaganda all wrapped up in an anti-UK/pro-EU package. Given what’s at stake that sort of disgusting behaviour makes me want to vomit frankly.
I never said it didn’t work. My comment was to try to draw clarification from Alex because his claims make no sense.
That last bit of my comment wasn’t directed at you or anyone on here btw – it was squarely aimed at the Politician (German I think) who abused his position of trust in a deliberate and premeditated written or verbal attack for his own benefit. Apologies if you felt splashed by overspill – it wasn’t intentional.
I generally try not to get into discussions on forums like this. But I happen to be a public health doctor and feel qualified to respond. Making comments like you did about the mRNA vaccines suggest that you have no clue of how they work. I consider these vaccines incredibly safe.
Think of your cells DNA as being a committee of architects busy creating blueprints for construction projects. Those blueprints are then sent out to a construction site where projects are built (by tradesmen under the direction of a foreman) as per the blueprints. The blueprints are the cell’s mRNA and the construction site is the ribosomes in the cytoplasm of the cell.
Viruses work by inserting another architect who takes over the work output of the committee so that the cell does nothing but create new viruses until it dies. Vaccines work by simulating this process, typically using live attenuated viruses or killed viruses. But generally they work on their effect at the committee level. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines provide only the blueprints which are then used to construct proteins that the body recognizes as antigens and creates antibodies against. No effect occurs at the Architect committee level (DNA). It like the blueprints get mixed in with all the other blueprints that go to be assembled. This is far less invasive to a cell than an actual virus which effects the DNA and eventually kills the cells. The mRNA eventually decomposes into its component nucleic acids which get reused. It has no real effect on the cells themselves. This is an incredibly safe process.
Suggesting that long term effects are unknown and just wait till people die, begs the question of what is the mechanism that will cause those long term effects? There really aren’t any. The process by which mRNA is used to create proteins is something that every one of our cells is doing on a constant basis. To suggest that something in this process is going to kill someone months or years down the road is pretty silly.
Now there is the possibility that a product in the vaccine used to stabilize it or in the manufacturing process may cause long term problems is possible. But those products have been used for years in drug manufacturing without significant long term complications. To suggest that one of these products will turn deadly in this situation suggests that there is a reason for making that claim unrelated to the science and facts of what is actually happening.
Thanks for that timely comment, Steven.
We don’t need censorship. All we need is more speech. If someone says something that is not factual, we don’t need to censor them, we just present an alternative narrative, like Steven has done here.
Your description of cell functions reminded me of something I read about the therapeutic drug, Remdisivir.
It seems that Remdisivir affects the Wuhan virus directly and disrupts its propagation process causing the virus to be unable to replicate itself.
“Here, we present the first interim safety and efficacy data for a viral vector coronavirus vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, evaluated in four trials across three continents, showing significant vaccine efficacy of 70·4% after two doses and protection of 64·1% after at least one standard dose, against symptomatic disease, with no safety concerns”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32661-1/fulltext
You would like to think that amongst the 27 states within the EU, there would be a thriving and world leading group of pharmaceutical companies. But when you have an unelected cabal in control, with central control and planning, this is the result you get.
What did the British government do?
1) Order and pay significant amounts up front, to a number of leading and promising vaccine manufacturing companies. This provided the companies with the cash up front to go at lightning speed for the development of vaccines.
2) Encouraged all to perform the phase 1/2/3 trials to run back to back instead of the typical 6 month delay between each phase.
3) Encouraged the vaccine regulator to accept a phased input of medical data from the vaccine trials. This enabled the regulator to approve the vaccines in record time with no missing steps.
The EU regulator, suffered the usual fate of having the equivalent of a truck load of data dumped on it at the end of the last, phase 3 trial. It takes a significant time to process this data.
Remember, all in the world received the genetic code at the same time. All in the world could have launched an operation to develop a vaccine(s) at lightning speed. The UK did, others did not.
Each and every day bolsters our reasons for leaving the EU.
AZ cant honour its contract with the EU, because of production problems in the UK, so the EU want AZ to break its contract with the UK, and if they dont, they will make Pfizer break its contract with the UK by holding back the export of Pfizer vaccines to the UK.
The EU are acting like children, acting illegally, and panicking.
They could ask nicely if the UK will help them out (the UK has just developed another vaccine by the way, and will produce 60 million of those ) because we are 4 months ahead of the EU, we will meet our quota sooner. After that we will be happy to give them vaccines.
Unlike the EU, we are not childish, we are not bitter.
I suspect you meant production problems in Belgium.
Matthew
What other UK vaccine?
Novavax who announced good results this week is American, although the clinical trial was in the UK and manufacture will be in Britain (Teeside).
Yes, Novavax, already passed trials and on order.
The EU Commission/Institutions are the best advert for countries leaving the EU…
A central bank headed by a convicted financial fraudster!
IMF head found guilty of criminal charges over massive government payout
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/christine-lagarde-convicted-imf-head-found-guilty-negligence-fraud-trial-a7484586.html
The “elected” (read selected) commission headed by a selected failed German Defence minister.
None of them can put Humpty together again.
The Swiss have overwhelmingly rejected EU membership. Again. They are reportedly planning on a treaty with the UK. More of the EU member states are using Brexit as a way of levering more out of the EU or are openly considering leaving. It proves that the EU has always been a shaky house of cards not fit for it’s original purpose. How long before the EUrocrats rescind the withdrawal mechanism in a bid to lock the member states into a failing organisation?
Changing the withdrawal mechanism without approval of the member states invalidates the whole thing.
Not necessarily. The Maastricht treaty oversaw the setting up and development of the EU, the Lisbon treaty introduced the withdrawal mechanism. Altering it might invalidate the Lisbon treaty but not the whole thing. They might see it as a price worth paying.
Give the French the vaccines and then remind them this is the 3rd time in a century the UK has saved European arses.
Can’t remember the other two. Enlighten me please.
Sure:
1
2
You’re welcome
It’s all right – the French have a plan. They are going to turn the Champs Elysees into an ornamental park so the Germans can’t march along it on their way into Paris any more.
Y’all can have mine!
I’ll wait for antibody testing. Without a mask or masquerade.
The EU is being led by a Bureaucratic Hegemony – exactly what the Democrats push for the US to have every single day.
If Trump had waited for the US Bureaucratic Hegemony to get vaccines for the US, America would be in the exact same shape the EU is in today. Thank Pete that Trump ignored our BH and went ahead and acted on his own to make sure we got the vaccines we need.
It was the Soviet Union’s BH that finally led it down the path to perdition and caused its breakup. The EU is following the same path to perdition.
Another fight over something that is generally unneeded.
Bad article. Please check your facts before posting.
First AstraZeneca is British/Swedish company, Sweden is part of EU.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/british-factories-should-make-up-astrazeneca-vaccine-supply-eu-says-1.4469257
AstraZeneca was allocated €336 million in public EU funding to help the development and production of its vaccine in collaboration with Oxford University, in exchange for an agreement to supply the EU with 400 million early doses…
EU officials suggested that some vaccines produced by AstraZeneca in its European factories may have been shipped elsewhere, including the UK. “The customs data do not lie,” an EU official said. “We can see vaccines were sent to many countries.” In December, the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce told reporters that the country’s initial supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine was being manufactured in the Netherlands and Germany…
So EU paid for vaccine development to half EU company, with factories on EU ground.
And UK is selling vaccines anywhere and EU is bad.
Humor me more.
The Irish Times, eh. My favourite is Fintan O’Toole. He writes great stuff like Brexit-addled Britain
Not at all biased in any way.
As this article is not UK biased of course.
That’s precisely why he chose it, I’m sure.
Just because it doesn’t slavishly worship the EU is not evidence that it is UK biased.
Ireland is still a little miffed by the whole Brexit experience. The EU promised Leo Varadkar he could have Northern Ireland if he played along.
From the article you linked to: ““We reject the logic of first come, first served”
Of course they reject that logic. But the shoe would be on the other foot had they beaten the UK to the advance contracts, you can rest assured of that.
“We reject the logic of first come, first served (instead, we embrace emotion, and say ‘me first and foremost’)”
Main story … they reject logic.
From that article “We reject the logic” can sum up the EU position.
After AstraZeneca in conjunction with Oxford University had been allocated public UK funding to develop and produce its vaccine in exchange for the first supplies to the UK (plus later supplies to assist developing countries), the EU also allocated public funding to assist with the ongoing development in return for early supplies to the EU.
Of course vaccine from the Belgium/Netherlands AstraZeneca production facilities has been sent to the country which is using it. The UK purchased the first production from AstraZeneca, NOT from a particular production facility – which is normal practice. The EU inventing expectations that anything inside or outside the EU can be requisitioned by the EU is disingenuous at best. The very fact that AstraZeneca expect to supply vaccine to the EU before the first purchase from the UK has been completed is a sign of the generosity of AZ and UK.
In other news, the single dose Novavax vaccine appears to be undergoing the approval process.
So situation is, that AZ is breaking March contract with EU because of internal problems, same time it is going to expedite 100 million vaccines to UK, what is like 1.5 head count of UK, while for example Spain and other countries have shortage with vaccines? Is that right?
I know that everybody plays here for himself, but UK is no victim here. They have advantage and they want to keep it.
So it is perfectly justified for EU to keep Pfizer stock for UK and make advantage.
They have it, we don’t. That justifies our demands to give us some.
Once again, how socialist of you.
It takes 2 shots per head.
Spain’s shortage has nothing to do with AZ
Peter, the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be approved for EU use, TODAY. Any shipments prior to today are to efficient countries that accelerated the approval process.
The EU doesnot do acceleration well at all.
News flash, AstraZeneca vaccine given conditional approval for use in the EU.
Now, the arguments can begin in ernest.
Finally. Took ’em bloody long enough.
I just wonder what such mixed EU-UK companies lobbied for during the marathon Brexit deal. Maybe fish were more important than vaccines?
Nothing angers the Germans more than someone getting to the hotel swimming pool deck chairs before them!
So you believe that abiding by contracts is a bad thing?
The EU is demanding vaccines that it is not contractually entitled to, and you wish to defend this. How socialist of you.
How awfully efficient of you to mention only half of the facts and omit the rest. The EU hasn’t cleared the Astrazenica vaccine for use in the EU so cannot be sent any until it does. The UK has sold NOTHING of any EU vaccines – not one vial. However I believe that Astrazenica has, in the period while the EU was still trying to clear the vaccine, donated several shipments of the vaccine to the international fund to supply vaccine to poorer countries in a fair, humanitarian effort to fight covid.
Peter, do you even care? Facts or reality considering this subject are not the strongest among most of these guys.
AstraZeneca Pascal Soriot, just a few hours ago, came with his tail between his legs to say that he’s going to get his vaccines back in the next few days. Of course 26 countries have much more strength than just one country (if Scotland and Ireland can be really included in it) . But in the world of unicorns that these guys, and well, that exist in the minds of the climate alarmists, it seems that it also exists relative to issues of Covid and the huge advantages of Brexit. We will see the results of Brexit in two or three years…
“EU officials briefing journalists on condition of anonymity stressed the bloc had allocated €336 million to AstraZeneca to permit it to expand production.”. This money was”allocated” not paid! Never let a fact get in the way of propaganda!
Canada gets it’s vaccine from Pfizer in Belgium and they’re running short now too.
The EU is actually behaving worse than the article implies. The EU arrived late – organising a syndicate as they believed their “system” gave them better odds/pricing. Members were not allowed to place their own bets outside of the syndicate. They then heavily backed Sanofi(/GSK) development of a vaccine, and lost heavily when Sanofi fell at the trial stage.
The UK had got in early, heavily backing to most of the candidates – including advance purchase agreements at an agreed price on successful approval of each vaccine. The UK also appears to have done pre-emptive work on the approval system, so that no delays are introduced during the approval process. The rapid UK approval has enabled the companies to initiate large-scale production of the vaccines, starting to overcome initial teething problems. The production facilities of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK and Belgium/Netherlands FOR UK SUPPLY are still scaling up, with the UK facilities having had longer to iron out difficulties currently giving better yields.
Being late at every stage, the EU are now trying to create a crisis in order to steal the early production designated for the UK before it is even approved for use in the EU. They look likely to succeed in part by diverting the early Belgian/Netherlands production from supply of the UK (as specified under the contracts) into the EU. It is quite normal for the EU to take an outrageous position in order to plan a “compromise” to gain concessions from the offended party.
Perhaps AstraZeneca could be persuaded to open a third UK production facility as they have experience here of improving the yield. That could then assist in supplying other countries once the UK demand has been satisfied (Australia comes to mind). A simple diplomatic request from the ambassador may be enough. Pity that excludes the EU, as only countries have ambassadors.
Wow I see old habits die hard. Germans treathening with weapons. When will they start invading? Roma, Gypsies and Jews better start emigrating because when the camps open …
If I published a dictionary, then next to the definition of “dysfunctional” there would be a map of Belgium.
The American Left’s vision for America is, basically, a bigger version of Belgium: dysfunctional, degenerate & inconsequential. (And so, quite logically, the EU’s primary seat of government.)
W/r/t incompetence of our pandemic response, we’re almost there:
The U.S.A. is at 443,794 / 332,124.463 = 1.336 deaths per thousand population.
Belgium is at 20,982 / 11,618.801 = 1.806 deaths per thousand population.
Digging more I found:
AstraZeneca as UK/Swedish(EU) company, funded with EU money too, is producing vaccine in 4 factories, 2 UK and 2 EU based. EU based are not yielding. But UK is keeping whole UK production. And there are also facts showing, that EU based production is going to UK.
Basically privatized whole production and not fulfilling contracts.
This is one side offence triggered by UK.
Reaction to limit Pfizer vaccine delivered from EU to UK as consequence is fully justified, UK started this.
Digging yourself deeper into the hole, you found that a company is supplying its product to the customer who ordered it first, while the later customer has not even approved its use. This later customer is threatening action against the company and the first customer.
No customers. Two funding and co owning parties, where one is receiving nothing. I’m sure next time you create company, you let your co owner take all profit for some time, because he asked for it first.
If the co-owner created the company and then I showed up to buy in then I *would* expect the first person to take all profit for some time!
It’s the difference between “preferred” stock typically issued to the first major investors and the “common” stock sold to general investors. Preferred stock owners have first claim on any dividends to be paid.
The early bird gets the worm!
The world is a lot more complex than your simple socialist mind is capable of handling. The UK paid, up front, to get supplied first. You want AZ to break it’s contracts based on nothing more that the fact that the EU screwed up.
Even commissioning the development of a product (including downpayments) would not confer ownership of the company. That is even more-so when a product is already under development. The UK and EU are customers, simply using the expertise of the company (Oxford University/AstraZenica joint venture) to develop a required product. Yes, the production is behind schedule. The UK was originally due to receive the first 30 million doses by last September.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/funding-and-manufacturing-boost-for-uk-vaccine-programme
Then you know that up until 31st December 2020 the UK was paying in to the EU coffers. And still will be contributing through other mechanisms.
So that EU money is also UK money…
BREXIT does not mean Britain’s financial contribution to the EU is over, with taxpayers facing the prospect of paying £10billion into the bloc’s pension pot over the course of the next 44 years…
Referring to a Facts4EU.org analysis yesterday which indicated the UK had already paid the EU £41billion since voting to leave in 2016
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1381456/brexit-news-latest-EU-pension-payment-Ursula-von-der-Leyen-Michel-Barnier-Guy-Verhofstadt
That public EU funding you mentioned includes UK funding
What you show here is no different from what you showed before.
AZ is following it’s contracts and shipping to the customer who ordered (and paid) first.
Once again, like a normal socialist, you actually believe you have a right to cut to the front of the line, just because you have a need.
Peter. The EU cannot take any of the vaccine yet. It still has yet to clear it for use in the EU. Until that happens not one drop from one single vial may be released to anyone in the EU as it would be illegal. Once it is released then Az will look to fulfil all it has promised to do but until then everyone’s hands are tied. By the EU.
I suggest that the EU invade the UK and force its surrender [of the vaccine].
The EU have done many things, but this latest is easily the worst….they have made Nigel Farage look good. Unforgivable.
In addition to Pasteur institute, Merck also dropped out of COVID vaccine development this week citing efficacy problems.
Is it possible they are using this novel transfection approach for their vaccines, instead of using attenuated or inactivated virus, because they do not have access to live coronavirus? With all these daily reported COVID-19 positive samples there should be plenty of coronavirus available for viral culture. Unless the samples do not contain active coronavirus?
In the early days of the pandemic, the viral isolation cell culture of re-positives samples in South Korea had ALL RESULTS NEGATIVE (out of 108) for the presence of coronavirus(*). Curiously they did not question the validity of the qPCR assay even though they report 90% of them were at Ct>30.
(*) Findings from investigation and analysis of re-positive cases Date: 2020-05-19
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency
https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030
Merck was using attenuated vectors, an attenuated measles virus vector, and and attenuated VSV virus vector to carry just the spike protein. That was Not enough of the real SARS-2 virus to produce a robust immune response to that virus. The mRNA vaccines (Moderna and J&J) incorporate mRNA coding for both a stabilized spike protein and other parts of the virus that drive better T cell responses. The enhanced T cell response then amplifies the B-cell responses (antibodies) to the spike protein..
Thanks for the details on the Merck vaccine. They have genetically engineered a chimeric virus with the VSV vector expressing the coronavirus spike protein. This is even more perplexing. Why these pharmas are all tinkering with these novel genetic approaches to create a human vaccine instead of working directly with the native SARS-2 coronavirus? If I would have been in an urgency to develop a vaccine, I would have chosen well-proven traditional approaches using the native virus to stimulate an efficient immune response.
From what I have read, the safety protocols are much stricter for vaccines that use an actual virus, whether it be live or killed.
Obviously the EU has taken a lesson from Corporate cronyism. If you bet on the wrong horse insist that someone else bails you out.
What’s “sour grapes” in German?
I tried to a post a link to the naked picture of Merkel … but all I could do was post the actual picture.
Sorry to all who saw that before I edited it away
Send in the Russians–they know how to raid the place.
Hide it in the coal mines–behind some oil drums.
Daily telegraph: “Germany has become the hardest of hard-liners, departing ever further from its traditional role as a good global citizen and defender of markets. The dirigiste economy minister, Peter Altmaier, says he favours seizing control of the production process and ordering companies to manufacture vaccines at multiple sites, with a gun to their head. ”
“seizing control of the production process”
The very definition of Fascism. The path Germany has been following for a decade or more. It didn’t work out well in the 30’s and 40’s. It won’t work out any better here in the 21st century.
I am genuinely curious as to why no country outside of eastern Europe is running tests on the Russian vaccine.
I wonder if anyone in charge even knows that there is a Russian vaccine. I haven’t seen mention of it in mainstream media (or even alternative media).
They know, Hungary the EU member is currently using it to vaccinate their population
… and been criticised for not following Herr Merkel’s orders.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1387279/EU-news-Hungary-russia-vaccine-sputnik-v-viktor-orban-vladimir-Putin-eu-summit
They’ll probably go for the “made in China” vaccine too, which will pour more oil on an already raging fire.
Hungary has just cleared the Chinese vaccine for use as well as the Russian ‘Sputnik’ vaccine.
Serbia has also cleared the Russian ‘Sputnik’ vaccine, ordering 40,000 doses initially but hopes to begin production of the ‘Sputnik vaccine in Serbia for home use and, eventually, export.
It’s part of the anti-Russian rhetoric spewing out of certain western governments. The initial response was to downplay the Russian vaccine saying they couldn’t possibly have tested it properly in the time they had and it would affect millions with the side-effects. When the expected vaccine deaths didn’t occur as Russia rolled out first 1 then 3 different vaccine program’s, everyone ignored Russia completely and Pfizer (I think) became the world’s first vaccine, despite getting clearance weeks after the first Russian one. Vaccine nationalism started back then, it hasn’t just surfaced.
And now they appear to have followed through with a ban on export of vaccines contracted to supply other countries. Interestingly, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine apparently uses a key component patented and produced exclusively in Britain (basically the antifreeze carrier by my understanding). It will be interesting to see if this product is still exported by the UK.
“Croda is to play a vital role in the production of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.
The East Yorkshire headquartered specialty chemical company has entered into an agreement with the US giant to supply a new ingredient that carries the active element into the body. It will be produced at sites in the UK and US.
The contract with Pfizer runs for five years and awards Croda an initial supply contract for four component excipients – described as the vehicle to transfer the drug – for the first three years of the contract.”
Don’t rush to buy shares, I bought some 6 months ago, and sold about two weeks ago with just 5% net profit.
https://www.business-live.co.uk/manufacturing/croda-covid-vaccine-pfizer-coronavirus-19255856
Paul
There in no export ban on vaccines AFAIK, they have just mandated receiving permission for vaccine exports.
They are getting ready for it, why else evoke article 16 of the UK-EU’s NI treaty.
Vuk
Yes they took some steps down that deeply unwise article 16 path, but now it looks like the EU are backtracking from that.
While not a complete ban, their misuse of the Northern Ireland protocols is effectively the same thing. The EU is the world’s expert in non-tariff barriers to trade. They know that simply holding things up at the border “for paperwork” costs the importer/exporter so much time and money, and possibly destruction of a perishable load that while not technically a ban, it has exactly the same effect. Just look at exports of live Langoustines from Scotland to France. Hold them up at the border long enough, and the restaurants no longer want them. The risk is too great, so they get used for frozen scampi instead.
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-01-29/covid-eu-bans-exports-of-vaccines-potentially-putting-uk-supply-at-risk
P.S. the title of that article has just been toned down.
Interestingly, from a public health perspective, I think the strategy of vaccinating vulnerable groups first may be misguided. Anyone still working is likely to have far more contacts, so vaccinating workers first would be likely to break chains of transmission. That inhibition of transmission should also protect the vulnerable until they too are vaccinated. In other words, vaccinating vulnerable people who are shielding is not likely to have significant impact on the R0 number. General vaccination of adults who are in contact with many people would be much more likely to end the pandemic quickly. It would be interesting if a country followed that strategy. Any volunteers? Sweden?
If the risk of dying from the virus was reasonably the same across populations, then your strategy would be correct. With COVID the risk of dying if you are under the age of 60 is quite small and gets smaller as you move toward a younger population.
The entire purpose of vaccinating a population is to prevent death and significant sequalae (long term complications). So we can try to prevent those deaths by vaccinating people who won’t die or have problems with the hope that we prevent those most at risk of dying from getting the disease. Or we just vaccinate those most at risk of dying directly.
Given that these vaccines are limited at this point, we need to vaccinate those at risk of dying. If no one is dying from this disease, does it really matter if the R0 is still above 1?
Yes, probably more applicable to countries such as Australia/NZ/Taiwan who have been successful in avoiding mass infections, but still need a route back to opening up the economy – eventually including international travel.
Paul C
It would be interesting if a country followed that strategy. Any volunteers? Sweden?
Indonesia have done exactly that – started covid vaccination with workers.
https://www.dw.com/en/indonesias-covid-vaccination-campaign-prioritizes-workers/a-56316852
Thanks for alerting me to that. I will have to keep an eye on their progress.
Try persuading young people, who have virtually zero chance of serious illness or death, to accept a vaccine with known, if mild, side effects; to protect other people, just is not going to happen. Especially as 100% of them would have to be vaccinated, and that vaccine efficacy would have to be 100% as well. Not going to happen. A large amount do not even wear face-coverings, and some even sport the lanyards signifying exemption from wearing protection. Not going to happen. everybody is selfish now.
I wonder why did the EU wait so long to try to secure vaccines? Did France have the final word hoping their vaccine was a “better one”? I wonder if this came down to greed?
In any case, if I were UK I would be building the infrastructure to fill the vaccine bottles locally, not in Germany. Wouldn’t it be something if large amounts of vaccine meant for UK were actually seized in Germany?
I think that it might be a paralysis of indecision caused by having too many competing choices. The UK approach was to hedge their bets and support several companies at once hoping they’d backed at least one winner. I don’t know for sure but I think the EU was reluctant to commit in case they picked a loser so became unable to make a decision at all. In hindsight they should have allowed individual countries to order vaccine then consolidated those into an EU wide approach. Because of that indecision some EU countries have broken ranks and are making their own deals for vaccine.
This why centralized, government management set-up are failures. Nicholas Nassim Taleb discusses these issues in his sequel to The Black Swan, Anti-Fragile.
It is the problem of top-down organized/run, fragile systems, as opposed to a bottom-up style of letting the manufacturers compete with little government interference (as Trump Admin did). The old Soviet Union 5-years plans are an example of top-down directed fragile systems that eventually led to disastrous consequences for the people when they inevitably failed.
What ever happened to ivermectin. Not to long ago I read on wuwt that ivermectin is very effective. One commenter asked why doesn’t ivermectin work in America but does in India. This comment received a lot of support. So if ivermectin works and is cheap why are we arguing about expensive vaccines. Before I get slaughtered bear in mind I am one of the laymen and not a scientist and the more I try to learn about this dam pandemic the more confusing it gets. Are people dying with it or from it, is the survival rate really 99.97% if so how would we even know how effective a vaccine is, PCR tests with a CT of 45 which I’m led to believe is useless. I could go on but you get the point. How is average Joe to make sense of this.
Unfortunately, politics has apparently trumped rational medicine.
I think you may be right. If a cheap cure has been pushed aside to make way for a more profitable vaccine then that erodes my confidence in the vaccine. Why trust a seemingly rushed through vaccine when there is a cure in a drug that’s been around for a long time and likely has no unforseen consequences ?
https://www.drugs.com/price-guide/ivermectin
According to the numbers given above, the cost of the AZ vaccine is cheaper than ivermectin.
I have long said that the EU will eventually make the Brits look like geniuses for brexiting that cluster farrago. And sure enough, within a couple of months the EU dose it.
I agree wholeheartedly. Just curious when you said the EU dose it was that a pun or a spelling mistake?
The EU obviously did it with a large dose.
I can’t type or spell. And, I am not that clever.
Don’t put yourself down, please. It was a very amusing, if unintended pun. Kudos to you sir.
Unfortunately, the EU have done something even worse: They have made Nigel Farage look sensible. He no longer looks like a vocal clown, he looks like a sensible prophet.
Dear Lord, it’s worse than we thought!
Its rather sad to how WUWT is turning into a political site instead of site for skeptics of CAGW regardless of their political views. When you bow to one group of people, you are showing you other end to others.
Respectfully, you don’t have to read anything you don’t want to. No one is forcing you.
CAGW is political. In fact, it is policy in most countries. It sure ain’t science.
I believe the climate scam was always political so if your talking cagw, whether you’re skeptical or not politics will be in there somewhere.
I would imagine that if most of here were raving socialists, you would be cheering the politics.
I only you had the slightest idea how silly you little bubble looks from the Nordic countries, where I am from. But then again, bubbles exist because of unwillingness to understand other views.
Ah yes, anyone who disagrees with me is living in a bubble, but I of course am bubble free. I know this because everybody I know agrees with me.
Yawn, look in the mirror pal. In the Nordic countries, every opinion is listened to and the every one of these countries have large number of political parties representing differing views. The whole point of any genuine discussion is to hear differing views so that we can learn from each other. Demonizing all those you disagree with, like the EU in this post, is not a way for grown-ups to deal with the challenges.
“we need to tell other companies in the world, if you treat the Europeans as second class you will suffer for this.”
Bizarre statement as the EU is clearly trying to turn every European into a second class citizen who lacks reliable power, employment, accountable governance or free choice in a wide array of decisions about how to live and thrive. So the message is essentially a threat of reprisals for recognizing the reality.
C’mon EU – there’s a cure already out there, stop being so racist and opposed to the wisdom of other cultures!
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2020/2/25/applying-essential-oil-to-anus-cures-coronavirus-iranian-cleric
Just a little violet oil dabbed on your bum will take care of you right quick!
You dare laugh at me? Might I remind you that China now recommends anal swabbing for CoVID checks. You didn’t realize that CoVID was such a buggery bugger, did you?
It wasn’t actually clear if said cleric was suggesting everyone does it themselves or if he was going to do it for others? That’s one way to get your kicks I suppose – each to their own.
The EU’s ire on this subject is deeply irrational, as shown by a cool look at the numbers involved.
How many vaccine doses would it be practically and politically possible to ship from the UK across the channel to the EU? Maybe ten million at most. This corresponds to less than 3% of the EU’s population. And that would be at the cost of damaging political acrimony, as is already happening.
Much better to just get production sorted out in Belgium and the Netherlands. And to learn the lesson that speed and flexibility do really matter sometimes more than rigid organisational orthodoxy.
You got it in one, which sets you apart from the crowd of ‘denier’ criers on this thread, sorry, ‘remainer’ criers who believe everything they read in the tabloids. Oh those nasty European imperialists. And then crowing that the EU caved in, Barnier told the Council off and so on. We won!
Ask the simple question, why so public, why humiliate your colleagues (Barnier’s) in public when all you had to do was walk down the corridor and knock on the door? Because he was playing to the gallery, that’s why. Because the whole thing was a charade, and the whole of the UK press fell for it, lock stock and barrel. You have been played. You have been played with a little machiavellian scheme to get a strong message across without spelling it out (that would be impolite, wouldn’t it).
I’ll tell you a secret. The UK is widely seen as an unreliable partner. Not the people, the bureaucracy. What partners in agreements perceive as firm commitments that shall be stuck to whatever, is often treated as declarations of intent by UK bureaucrats. Something that is ignored when the ‘circumstances change’. I quote from personal experience: “our partners will understand”. (There is one exception, the military.)
Just look at the eternal renegotiations of terms for the EU membership, the opt-outs, by Maggie, by Major, by Cameron (before the referendum) and the attempt by Boris to wriggle out commitments concerning Northern Ireland. And with the current bureaucratic mess in industries such as fisheries, transport a what not more, you can see the next “they will understand” being considered. And the EU won’t have any of it anymore.
So they sent a message: we can play that little game too. You didn’t like it one bit. So don’t even think of it yourself.
I’ll tell you a secret – in the UK the EU has always been viewed as a bit of a joke. We have always viewed the other countries in Europe as partners but not the EU. It was an interesting experiment that has failed, gone far too far and should be scrapped before it rips Europe apart completely. We tried to look at necessary and vital changes over the years only to be shut out completely by the EU leadership out of touch with reality. Is it any wonder we could no longer stand to be in such an organisation?
Ed
Honesty in relationships needs to be cultivated.
If you are a bully, all around you will seem to be liars.
So your position boils down to a belief that since doing something this stupid would be bad for the EU, therefore the EU isn’t doing it and anyone who says otherwise is an anti-EU bigot.
The EU is planning to stop exports of vaccines to non EU countries which will impact Australia which pre-ordered vaccines many months ago with valid contracts. To cover for their incompetence on this issue the unelected Brussels mandarins are trying to break legal arrangements between private companies and elected governments. No wonder Brexit got up.
I believe the EU has now reversed it’s position. However I think the WHO have now intervened and asked the UK to stop vaccinating after the ‘at risk’ vaccinations and supply their vaccine to other countries so that they can ‘catch up’. I kid you not.
Why is everyone so obsessed with the vaccine?
There seems to be an assumption that this will prevent transmission and infection?
The UK government in their briefing the other day, from what I could make out were saying again that they do not know if it prevents infection and transmission and seemed to be implying it is most likely it does not prevent them. It is thought likely it reduces transmission to some extent but it is not confirmed or quantified yet. Probably different from one vaccine to another. The main thing seems to be taking pressure off hospitals, but in the government briefing we were reminded again you will still get some vaccinated people catching it with a severe outcome.
In fact, I may be imagining it, but thought there was a hint during the answers to questions in their last briefing that as results come in they may review the vaccination strategy. Why vaccinate the half of the population who are unlikely to have a serious outcome from the virus if the vaccine is not having a big impact on infection and transmission? Why risk a hurriedly validated product (the pressure to design, validate, manufacture reminds me of the 737Max issue) and strategy on a virus we still have much to learn about if we likely get limited impact beyond vaccinating the 5 to 15% most at risk?
Because the latest results show amongst the trial population of those who had the vaccine, no deaths from covid at all, greatly reduced levels of severe illness.
If the vaccine can prevent covid deaths and dramatically reduce the load on health services, then we can return to normal life much more quickly.
Will vaccinated individuals still become infected just like now? Of course.
Thanks Steve. As an engineer perhaps I could tell everyone my product testing showed zero failures but in reality I only had time to test 10 samples to a quarter of the design life and only one type of test and we’re expecting to sell hundreds of thousands. So simplistically with low confidence zero failures could mean reliability might be 91% or better at quarter design life on that one type of test. As we get better data we can develop the best strategy of risks, costs vs warranty returns etc.
One of the points I was trying to make is depending where the real numbers are for impact of vaccine on infections and transmission and reduction of severity and across risk factors etc our current lack of accuracy for these as well as taking into account other factors like cases around the world dropping, lack of knowledge of lengterm effects of disease or vaccine could perhaps mean the difference between several very different strategies e.g. perhaps vaccinate everyone or only vaccinate a very small number of people we know (e.g. due to age, blood group, genes, lifestyle etc, which I would have thought we must be close to having reasonably useful data on that by now, surely?) are likely to have severe outcome, just enough of that group to keep the impact of the virus within other causes of hospitalisation or death like flu. We could weigh up these options, risks etc both as a government and as an individual.
I’m always nervous when we put so much faith in science and engineering to control nature and perhaps we need to be a bit more cautious how we deal with threats.
The latest presentation by Dr. David Martin concerning the legal definition of a vaccine in the USA and why neither Pfizer nor Moderna meet this definition is fascinating.
We will vaccinate our hamsters before we give spare vaccines to you, Hancock tells EU
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/we-will-vaccinate-our-hamsters-before-we-give-spare-vaccines-to-you-hancock-tells-eu-20210128204733