China Coronavirus

[Milltown Row2]

The EU are losing its shit on the vaccine roll out and contracts, saying they will have a 3rd wave soon.  Threatening the UK, this should be interesting

[armaghniac]

The EU are losing its shit on the vaccine roll out and contracts, saying they will have a 3rd wave soon.  Threatening the UK, this should be interesting

They will have a third wave, as the "Kent" variant is ripping through the place. "Threatening the UK" is the British perspective on this, conserving their own resources might be a fairer way of looking at things. Does it make sense for the EU to continue to allow German or Belgian made vaccine be sent to Britain to vaccinate 40 year olds when its own 80 year olds cannot get vaccines? No doubt during the famine the British used Contract Law to justify shipping food out of Ireland.

[Milltown Row2]

Yeah listen if they want to put a blockade on and f**k the uk over then go ahead.

17 million people have taken it in Europe, despite what Angelo said it hadn't, it's reducing the death rates and doing the heavy lifting in respect of reducing hospitals admissions.

The EU would have more clout and money than the uk, I don't understand how they allowed this to be a shambles

[Rossfan]

Probably agreed a much lower price than the Brits?
Astra then saw they couldn't possibly meet their promises so prioritised the smaller better paying customer?

[armaghniac]

AZ agreed a low price with the EU and then decided that it didn't suit them to produce at that price. But they cannot admit this, of course.

[Milltown Row2]

AZ agreed a low price with the EU and then decided that it didn't suit them to produce at that price. But they cannot admit this, of course.

So did The EU renegotiate? If this is true.

[Rossfan]

Astra simply told them they'd supply about a quarter of what they'd originally agreed.

[Milltown Row2]

Did the uk fund this drug by tens of millions?

[Evil Genius]

Did the uk fund this drug by tens of millions?

AstraZeneca was signed as Oxford's partner on 30 April and signed a deal to supply 100m doses to the UK a fortnight later. Ministers were prepared to pay a few hundred million upfront, allowing the company to build its first virus manufacturing process, and the UK government to demand its citizens be vaccinated first.

"That underpinned all of it," an industry insider said.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/29/we-had-to-go-it-alone-how-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

That article also contains one further snippet which is very illuminating (imo):
With Brexit looming, the UK drew huge criticism for declining to join EU schemes to purchase PPE and ventilators. There was also growing pressure to join a joint EU procurement plan for vaccines, and to put aside the Brexit rhetoric.

But Brussels' demands were eye-watering: the UK, unlike EU member states, would not be able to take part in the governance of the scheme, including the steering group or the negotiating team.

Britain would have no say in what vaccines to procure, at what price or in what quantity, and for what delivery schedule. There would be no side-deals possible.

British officials were not convinced. "We had to go it alone," said a UK source. "There was nothing there for us." By the time a special UK vaccine taskforce was created in April, the seeds of a successful strategy had been sown.

[sid waddell]

They talked about having potential herd immunity there too so on that front it's not good either.

It's also a lesson as regards the concept of vaccine acquired herd immunity

The Astra Zeneca vaccine doesn't seem to be very effective against the South African variant

I suspect we could see a big spread of that variant or another similarly evasive variant this summer or autumn

the Astra Zenica vaccine prevents serious illness even against the varients. I think we could all live with it if it turns into something more like a cold.

But if it's not very effective against transmission we still have a problem, a big problem, because if we open up society, lots of people will die even in a mass vaccination situation - and new variants will continually emerge because of mass spread

I'm not dissing the Astra Zeneca vaccine, people should absolutely take it if offered to them but it does seem to have serious limitations

Astra Zeneca and other vaccines will play a key part in getting rid of the worst of the effects of the pandemic  in the short term - but the longer term process of getting back back to normality looks likely to be very fraught indeed

[Evil Genius]

(Further to my previous post on vaccine funding)

From September 2020:
"The UK is to give £500m to a new global vaccine-sharing scheme designed to ensure treatments for Covid-19 are distributed fairly...           ... [this] will go to the Covax vaccines procurement pool, which aims to help poorer countries access a coronavirus jab when one is developed."

and

"[Prime Minister Johnson] also promised £340m to the World Health Organization over the next four years - a 30% increase on the previous period, making the UK one of its biggest donors."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54303061

[Angelo]

Guys.

What do we make of Israel?

9.5m vaccine doses given.
60% of the entire population has received at least one dose. That probably is up in the 70% mark for the adult population.
Yet the daily cases are still staying quite stubbornly high. The 7 day moving average is about 2k daily cases.
The vaccine was sold to us as the solution but what happens if it's not as impactful as we were promised.

I know you can make the argument that it's early doors yet but I really thought that type of coverage would have made a much more impactful presence on the number of cases and transmission rates.

[In hiding]

Guys.

What do we make of Israel?

9.5m vaccine doses given.
60% of the entire population has received at least one dose. That probably is up in the 70% mark for the adult population.
Yet the daily cases are still staying quite stubbornly high. The 7 day moving average is about 2k daily cases.
The vaccine was sold to us as the solution but what happens if it's not as impactful as we were promised.

I know you can make the argument that it's early doors yet but I really thought that type of coverage would have made a much more impactful presence on the number of cases and transmission rates.

Are there many hospitalisation or deaths ?

[Angelo]

Guys.

What do we make of Israel?

9.5m vaccine doses given.
60% of the entire population has received at least one dose. That probably is up in the 70% mark for the adult population.
Yet the daily cases are still staying quite stubbornly high. The 7 day moving average is about 2k daily cases.
The vaccine was sold to us as the solution but what happens if it's not as impactful as we were promised.

I know you can make the argument that it's early doors yet but I really thought that type of coverage would have made a much more impactful presence on the number of cases and transmission rates.

Are there many hospitalisation or deaths ?

Not sure is my honest answer.

The latest 7 day moving average for daily deaths is 17.

Israel has a population of 9m. So to equate that roughly when north and south would be 4 daily deaths in the north and 10 in the souths which is probably not far off the daily totals?

I guess we'll have a clearer answer by the end of April on this.

What we have gone through the past year is not sustainable any longer and it has caused a lot of damage. The western world has chased a strategy of draconian lockdowns and vaccines to solve it, I'd have expected more encouraging results from that but hopefully by April those statistics in Israel have improved dramatically.

[armaghniac]

Did the uk fund this drug by tens of millions?

AstraZeneca was signed as Oxford's partner on 30 April and signed a deal to supply 100m doses to the UK a fortnight later. Ministers were prepared to pay a few hundred million upfront, allowing the company to build its first virus manufacturing process, and the UK government to demand its citizens be vaccinated first.

"That underpinned all of it," an industry insider said.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/29/we-had-to-go-it-alone-how-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

That article also contains one further snippet which is very illuminating (imo):
With Brexit looming, the UK drew huge criticism for declining to join EU schemes to purchase PPE and ventilators. There was also growing pressure to join a joint EU procurement plan for vaccines, and to put aside the Brexit rhetoric.

But Brussels' demands were eye-watering: the UK, unlike EU member states, would not be able to take part in the governance of the scheme, including the steering group or the negotiating team.

Britain would have no say in what vaccines to procure, at what price or in what quantity, and for what delivery schedule. There would be no side-deals possible.

British officials were not convinced. "We had to go it alone," said a UK source. "There was nothing there for us." By the time a special UK vaccine taskforce was created in April, the seeds of a successful strategy had been sown.

Nobody is particularly criticising the UK for doing its own deal. It isn't even contentious that the Oxford vaccine was first used in Britain. However the EU also prepaid  €336 million to AZ and that should have secured them supplies, starting one month after the UK. The issue is why has it not?