EU unhappy with astrazeneca

[sxturbo]

Let us examine what we know:
The UK signed the contract earlier than EU, way before the clinical trials were conclusive. A big risk, but their gamble paid off. They're perfectly within their rights to do so. Morally and politically it's been a big boost for them. It has been their only right move so far.

The UK set in motion an ambition and a process to use the vaccines as soon as they became available and as fast as possible. Again, a bit of a gamble, but it's paid off handsomely in moral and political prestige. So another big boost to the prestige of UK government. Their second right move so far, and possibly recovered the poor rating of the government over the handling of the pandemic.

The EU signed their contract later when the clinical trials were well under way, so less of a gamble. Their contract was for massively more vaccines and value than the UK contract. Less risky and still well in time, and the delivery schedule could not really benefit an earlier signing.

The EU (EMA) approved the use of the vaccines rather later, but again, there was no rush due to the contracted delivery of the vaccines.

When the vaccine delivery were due, AZ announced a problem with the delivery schedule, eventually blaming the contract with UK for the restriction.

EU kicked up a right stink over it, using such public pressure as pressing for the publication of the contract to reinforce its argument. AZ resisted that publication. EU threatened legal action, even threatened public political action, and invoked a procedure to produce transparency over the export of vaccines. The contract was published, albeit in redacted form.

UK denied such restrictions in their contract with AZ.

UK government became magnanimous and started publicly offering to assist other countries with the supply of vaccines.

AZ agreed to supply more vaccines to EU.

Situation resolved.


End of factual sequence of events.
There is a rather egregious explanation of those events.
UK did indeed put pressure on AZ (political, moral or financial pressure) to divert the vaccines due to EU to UK. The UK, of course denied this.
The EU threats were of such magnitude that the UK could not maintain the pressure on AZ. AZ relented, and agreed to supply more vaccines to EU.

Now in this explanation and scenario, who caused the problem?

the EU are still short 40 million doses so its not situation resolved,

 

[sxturbo]

Happy to oblige.

“The European Commission and the European Investment Bank are strong supporters of COVAX, the world's facility to ensure fair and universal access to COVID-19 vaccines. Together with the EU Member States, Team Europe has so far allocated more than €850 million to COVAX, which makes the European Union COVAX's biggest donor. The European Commission and EIB's combined support of €500 million will enable COVAX to make one billion doses of vaccines available as rapidly as possible to people in low and middle income countries”, said the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2262​

you were beaten to the punch by Notch.

the uk have inputted more than any single nation in the EU.

 

[durhamplumber]

Just like James Bond with a stash of passports, Himmy has a stash of usernames and passwords, all ready to go

Is He Ellal?When he has his full of hell days?

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

the EU are still short 40 million doses so its not situation resolved,

You're right, it's not fully resolved ....yet.
It's certainly way better than it was.
And anyone reading between the lines can detect the creation and source of the problem.
AZ did divert vaccines from EU to supply UK.
AZ claimed problem with production in EU plants and refused to reciprocate and divert vaccines from UK to EU, blaming the problem on EU production plants. 'Why?' is the big question.
Situation now partly resolved.
Perhaps the problem was genuinely a slight reduction in production in EU plants, but coupled with AZ's refusal to divert supply from UK, it exacerbated the problem and caused a real political furore.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

LOL. Has this just happened or did they have the foresight and generosity to do this several months ago, like a third country did?

you were beaten to the punch by Notch.

the uk have inputted more than any single nation in the EU.

Clarifying the chronological sequence of events, for woody's benefit, and other readers.
EU pledged €850M, dated Press release 15 December 2020 Brussels https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2262
UK pledged £250M dated Published 10 January 2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-raises-1bn-so-vulnerable-countries-can-get-vaccine

The UK claims to be the richest and most powerful nation out of the EU, but in Europe.
Quite right they should live up to their self-proclaimed image.
Not to do so would have spoilt their reputation somewhat.
You can hardly expect smaller EU nations to contribute similar amounts.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Is He Ellal?When he has his full of hell days?

Maybe Ellal has been bullied off the forum.
Weird that some address him/her as female, and then proceed to bully him/her off the forum, don't you think?
It's almost as though they disagree with his/her contributions.

Ask yourself, why would I need a fistful of passports?
Is it permissible to have 'dual-nationality'?

 

[Lower]

End of factual sequence of events.

Crikey Bobby Trump, you've got some front claiming what you've written is factual. The opinion appears in the second sentence, all spun to fit your perspective.

Could that be called fantasy or is it actually just the unbacked up fake news that Bobby Trump so regularly accuses people of?

The UK signed the contract earlier than EU, way before the clinical trials were conclusive.

Fact

A big risk, but their gamble paid off. They're perfectly within their rights to do so. Morally and politically it's been a big boost for them. It has been their only right move so far.

Opinion

The UK set in motion an ambition and a process to use the vaccines as soon as they became available and as fast as possible.

Fact

Again, a bit of a gamble, but it's paid off handsomely in moral and political prestige. So another big boost to the prestige of UK government. Their second right move so far, and possibly recovered the poor rating of the government over the handling of the pandemic.

Opinion

The EU signed their contract later when the clinical trials were well under way, Their contract was for massively more vaccines and value than the UK contract.

Fact

so less of a gamble.

Less risky and still well in time, and the delivery schedule could not really benefit an earlier signing.

Opinion, and where the pro EU spin starts to kick in. The UK started the vaccine rollout earlier because they signed contracts earlier which meant that Pfizer and AZ could start setting up production earlier and the UK was nearer the front of the queue for deliveries. The UK started getting the pfizer vaccine into people's arms well before the EU because it was ordered sooner, approved sooner and deliveries were received sooner. The UK ordered, approved and started vaccinating people with the AZ vaccine before the EU for the same reason.

The crux of it is, the EU were slow out of the blocks and EU citizens will die because of it. Now that their unwieldy inertia to make things happen has been exposed, they've started flailing around, trying to pass the blame.

I could carry on pulling the rest of the fantasy apart, but i can't be bothered.

 

[ajohn]

There is a rather egregious explanation of those events.

LOL That's what the medias of various types like to report. A bit of it showed up on BBC via interviewing a particular person but another had a different view. People then choose which one they like. Similar on question time. One I don't watch normally as the output is pointless. First man is an unhappy domestic MP who wants to moan about the EU. Little to nothing came out about the AZ EU tiff. He just wants something to blame to keep his population happy. Next one was another from a different country. The interviewer tried his damnedest to get that one to say something contentious for ages over and over again but failed. So should the BBC decide to not broadcast different opinions or do what some others do and stick to one, usually the most inflammatory one. Those get attention.

Covid has been interesting for politician watchers. Normally they have 5 years or what ever to do what they say they are going to do. The fact that they didn't or partly succeeded tends to be forgotten. Some people conclude it's not even worth voting. The turn round time on covid handling aims is a lot quicker some times just weeks. They aren't used to that hence Hancock statements on testing capacity. He made another weeks ago that has never been achieved but the important aspect is that results of what they do are apparent in a couple of months at the most. They try to keep various sectors happy. Some of those sectors pop up with solutions that suite them and may even disregard the fact that they have been tried in other countries and haven't worked so abandoned. Gov needs to keep costs down to these "solutions" may be tried. This could also be seen as keeping them happy also we are in the shate anyway so a bit more doesn't matter.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

The UK started the vaccine rollout earlier because they signed contracts earlier which meant that Pfizer and AZ could start setting up production earlier and the UK was nearer the front of the queue for deliveries. The UK started getting the pfizer vaccine into people's arms well before the EU because it was ordered sooner, approved sooner and deliveries were received sooner.

The signing of the contracts is totally irrelevant because that all happened before the conclusion of clinical trials. So the vaccines were simply not proven effective before either of the contracts were signed. Therefore the timing of the contract signing is totally irrelevant.
Especially as there was no priority order of supply and delivery of vaccines built into the contracts.
Any setting up of production facilities was always dependent on the success of the clinical trials.
I believe the AZ clinical trials did not start until late August 2020, around the same time as the EU contact with AZ was signed.
The UK vaccines were simply delivered earlier because they had been approved by UK earlier, and for no other reason.
Indeed, the later approval process by the EU allowed for the diversion of EU produced vaccines to UK.

Once the EU contract required delivery, AZ, (possibly under pressure from UK) refused to deliver.

 

[sxturbo]

Once the EU contract required delivery, AZ, (possibly under pressure from UK) refused to deliver.

conjecture, there has been no evidence this has been the case.

also contract signing does make a difference, order timing does create a queue, ask any production based business, if i order 100 filters from bosch it gets put into there production schedule, if someone then orders 5000 filters 3 weeks after me, they don't go ahead of my order, the production schedule has already been planned.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

conjecture, there has been no evidence this has been the case.

And there never will be, for obvious reasons. It will never be revealed by political partners, nor private companies, all who may have prestige to lose.
But valid conjecture, none the less.

also contract signing does make a difference, order timing does create a queue, ask any production based business, if i order 100 filters from bosch it gets put into there production schedule, if someone then orders 5000 filters 3 weeks after me, they don't go ahead of my order, the production schedule has already been planned.

If the contracts were signed prior to clinical trial completion, and prior to the completion of such production capacity, and there was no priority order built into either contract, the chronological signing order of such contracts is irrelevant.

For sure, if the production line was complete and already producing, your argument might stand up, but it wasn't and it doesn't.

 

[Trazor]

And there never will be.

But valid conjecture, none the less.

You can't make a VALID conjecture, on that which is never known.

It's pure conjecture based on your opinion/prejudice.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

You can't make a VALID conjecture, on that which is never known.

All conjecture that fits the facts is valid. That's why it's called conjecture.

Definition of conjecture
1a: inference formed without proof or sufficient evidence
b: a conclusion deduced by surmise or guesswork
c: a proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved
​

If it doesn't fit the facts, it can't really be called conjecture. It would be called fantasy.

It's pure conjecture based on your opinion/prejudice.

As are all opinion-based contributions, yours, mine, and everyone else's.
I'm glad we got that sorted.

 

[ajohn]

Opinion, and where the pro EU spin starts to kick in. The UK started the vaccine rollout earlier because they signed contracts earlier which meant that Pfizer and AZ could start setting up production earlier and the UK was nearer the front of the queue for deliveries. The UK started getting the pfizer vaccine into people's arms well before the EU because it was ordered sooner, approved sooner and deliveries were received sooner. The UK ordered, approved and started vaccinating people with the AZ vaccine before the EU for the same reason.

The crux of it is, the EU were slow out of the blocks and EU citizens will die because of it. Now that their unwieldy inertia to make things happen has been exposed, they've started flailing around, trying to pass the blame.

Part correct but misses the important point as far as the EU is concerned. AZ were not meeting their supply schedule. It seems Pfizer were. No groans from any about them shutting down their main plant to upgrade it. Personally I would groan about all sides in that area even governments. There was a good excuse on testing and masks etc but large scale vaccine manufacturing facilities were bound to be needed and way way higher than has ever been needed before. For zero profit the more they need to make will increase costs as plant doesn't come for free. Twisted view but ...............

Your own sense should tell you something else as well. Say all went as quickly what do you think would happen? An inadequate supply would just run out more quickly. We are having to stretch ours anyway and it would be interesting to know how much of each is being used also what the supply rates are compared with the contract and also what that actually says. Be interesting to see Sweden's as well.

Then comes why the UK has gone the way it has. It involves more risk than going down the route the makers want and it's aim is to reduce deaths and hospitalisation not eradicate them. It might but we have to wait and see. The correct dose rate may be no better. The view here is that it's a no brainer as it should do something but what?

We may have the same problem again. Deaths running at ~10 a day so not newsworthy. That started ending last September. The fact that the numbers were not newsworthy probably has something to do with the increase. Some might start thinking well 15m have had the jab so all is ok now. That is likely to be used as an argument by some and at some point countries will need to see just how effective it is anyway.

 

[Lower]

The signing of the contracts is totally irrelevant because that all happened before the conclusion of clinical trials. So the vaccines were simply not proven effective before either of the contracts were signed. Therefore the timing of the contract signing is totally irrelevant.
Especially as there was no priority order of supply and delivery of vaccines built into the contracts.
Any setting up of production facilities was always dependent on the success of the clinical trials.
I believe the AZ clinical trials did not start until late August 2020, around the same time as the EU contact with AZ was signed.
The UK vaccines were simply delivered earlier because they had been approved by UK earlier, and for no other reason.
Indeed, the later approval process by the EU allowed for the diversion of EU produced vaccines to UK.

Once the EU contract required delivery, AZ, (possibly under pressure from UK) refused to deliver.

Supply of vials isn't dependent on the results of clinical trials, supply of the materials and chemicals used in the manufacture of the vaccine isn't dependent on clinical trials. Yet when you have an order in place and advance funding agreed to support this supply of materials and production capacity, you can get on with arranging it and ordering it earlier. This is exactly what happened with the AZ vaccine, as explicitly stated by the AZ CEO.

It's amazing how you think that signing of contract is irrelevant, but the fact remains that both vaccines that the UK signed deals for earlier than the EU were supplied to the UK earlier and in people's arms earlier.