[noemon]

UK did 27 million vaccinations and 21 million of those came from the EU. If we block the shipments then UK vaccination program will grind to an almost stand still.

Boris is a clown after all. He could have prevented this a long time ago but he hid behind the Telegraph pumping machine.

Telegraph now:

Britain is dependent on vaccine supplies from the EU to complete the second phase of its vaccination rollout, it emerged after Ursula Von der Leyen briefed European Union leaders at a summit to discuss export bans on Thursday.

The European Commission president gave a powerpoint presentation to the heads of state and government that brutally exposed the extent of Britain’s dependency on EU supplies.

Mrs von der Leyen told leaders the EU had exported a total of 21 million vaccines to the UK since December. Just over a million were AstraZeneca jabs and the rest Pfizer.

The remaining nine million or so were either manufactured in Britain, which will not be able to replace the EU supplies by itself, or imported from non-EU countries such as India, which has delayed deliveries.

[JohnRawls]

Boris is a clown after all. He could have prevented this a long time ago but he hid behind the Telegraph pumping machine.

Telegraph now:

There are 3.5 volume vaccine manufacturers right now: Europe, US, India. The other 0.5 is basically China and Russia put together. US is having its own issues and barely exporting due to Bidens political promises, India is having delays and only Europe is supplying the world technically since Russia and China are playing political games with their vaccines.

Basically the world is fucked.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

The Telegraph ignores what we know about how many Pfizer and AstraZeneca doses have been injected (rather than received from manufacturers).

By 14th March (the latest date for which the Pfizer/AstraZeneca split is publicly available), there had been 10.9 million Pfizer 1st doses and 13.7 million AZ 1st doses, plus 1.3 million 2nd doses, "mostly Pfizer". Of the 21 million received (not injected) from the EU, just over a million were AstraZeneca, and the rest Pfizer, so on 14th March the UK had about 8 million Pfizer doses still in stock; and had already administered over 12 million AZ doses from sources other than the EU (which would appear to be at most 5 million from India, so more than 7 million from UK production). Previous figures for the Pfizer 1st doses show that only 0.2 million were given in the week up to 7th March, and under 0.1 million in the week to the 14th March, so it looks like they were saving the rest for 2nd doses.

In summary, the UK has already received nearly enough Pfizer doses in stock to give 2nd doses to those who had that first; and has sizeable AZ supplies independent of the EU.

[AFAIK]

It's interesting that the emphasis is on AZ's distribution of doses rather than the fact that it, along with other manufacturers, is incapable of producing enough to meet Europe's needs. Whilst it is commendable that it is selling at cost the price becomes less relevant when you realise there are only enough doses for 10% of Europeans.

[B0ycey]

It's interesting that the emphasis is on AZ's distribution of doses rather than the fact that it, along with other manufacturers, is incapable of producing enough to meet Europe's needs. Whilst it is commendable that it is selling at cost the price becomes less relevant when you realise there are only enough doses for 10% of Europeans.

It should be noted that due to the so called "clotting" issue, that AZ vaccine is storing up in the EU and not being used which in itself makes this whole saga BS. This whole episode has made AZ turn round and say that should there be another pandemic they will not do a vaccine for cost now because this issue is so damn political and they have been put in the firing line which isn't entirely their fault. Perhaps that is their own making by them making deals they made before getting production started up. I suspect next time they will do orders they know they can fulfil rather than hope they can fulfil.

Nonetheless I don't really care about all this to be honest. We should be looking at age and the whole world anyway not our personal count. Even if the EU fully stopped exports it would only delay BoJos roadmap by a few months. The issue is the second jabs. It is better to make sure they are the same brand which is perhaps why we need a win-win compromise. The top nine groups will be vaccinated by mid April. I think now it would make sense to let the EU catch up, not due to diplomacy, but because when they suffer from a wave of infections, there is a strong chance due to close ties that wave is crossing the channel anyway. In other words it is in the UKs interest to get them caught up.

[noemon]

It should be noted that due to the so called "clotting" issue, that AZ vaccine is storing up in the EU and not being used which in itself makes this whole saga BS.

This is nonsense. Only specific countries have unused AZ vaccines as most of the EU countries did not engage in this and those doses sitting around in these particular countries are very few.

[B0ycey]

This is nonsense. Only specific countries have unused AZ vaccines as most of the EU countries did not engage in this and those doses sitting around in these particular countries are very few.

The take up for AZ is slow in the EU. People are refusing the vaccine or not turning up for appointments so their is a bottleneck appearing. Although the EU is forcing AZ to fulfil their contract now so we will soon see what impact the past month has done for their rollout. As long as the vaccine is getting used, I don't really care whose arm they go into. But if they aren't getting used and this is merely retort then it is BS because then it becomes politcal. I am not trying to defend the UK here because they have been selfish in my opinion by hiding behind contracts. But being the debate between the UK and the EU seems to be on fulfilment of contracts then I don't see how you can say one party is better than the other IF vaccine aren't being used which is the only factor that matters.

[noemon]

After a few weeks of doing battle(the likes of which I haven't done in over a decade for Macedonia) in the Telegraph and having personally received all sorts of insults, extreme racism and threats, for telling them to stop using Astrazeneca as a 'Brexit firecracker', Jeremy Warner came around to reality today for the first time stating the obvious to the Brexit acolytes:

The Government trumpets the AstraZeneca vaccine as a Brexit Britain success story, but this has been unhelpful to the company in Europe

Astrazeneca's stock has been severely reduced due to 'legacy reputational damage', which is extremely sad and especially for me.

I live in Cambridge where AZ is headquartered, my house is literally 1 minute walk from her new HQ in Addenbrookes, several of my friends work there, my wife used to work there and I do business with AZ.

Boris has taken this company, politicised its product and has turned it into a political football.

Shame on him and the Telegraph bitches.

As Jeremy Warner writes, Macron did a bit of damage but he was given the opportunity to.

[noemon]

Matt Hancock the UK's Health Minister has effectively described the Soviet relationship between the UK and Oxford's vaccine.

The British government helped to develop the vaccine from early beginnings as an Oxford University project a year ago with contracts securing the first 100 million doses for Britain before the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company entered into a partnership to produce the vaccine.

The EU produces 75 per cent of the world’s vaccine supply and has produced more than ten times as many coronavirus jabs as the UK has done, with two thirds of European production earmarked for governments across Europe.

Despite the massive difference in production and the EU’s long success as a global producer, Thierry Breton, the EU’s French internal market commissioner, has criticised the UK for not exporting AstraZeneca jabs made in Britain, a total of eight million, to Europe.

“We have a feeling that the vaccine nationalism is really on the other side of the Channel,” he said, noting that over ten million European-made jabs, mainly manufactured by Pfizer, an American company with major European factories, have been exported to the UK.

“We are not seeing any vaccines made in the UK arriving here.”

The UK has not received the 100 million vaccines, but Astrazeneca exports to other countries and not just the EU, which means that it goes through the British government calling 'first dibs' to decide which orders get delivered where.

Also if anybody followed developments back then knows that Oxford's vaccine was supposed to be distributed by Merck and not Astrazeneca who lacks the experience but the British government intervened, thwarted the Merck deal and fudged it like the Soviets. The product was mired by problems from the start because once you start something in error, the errors then pile up.

During the Merck fudge the British government gained leverage in Astrazeneca.

This government and the media in this country are going from worse to worst.

It's truly surreal and breathtaking.

[Atlantis]

"seizes"? The UK didn't seize anything.

Vaccines aren't reusable. You can only use a vaccine dose once. Either you respect your contract to supply Covax for poor countries, or the UK uses its contacts to take hold of the vaccines for the national aim. Both is not possible.

P.S. I love how everybody is shitting on AstraZeneca when it's the only company in the West that made a non-profit pledge and actually produces vaccines cheap enough to be used in the developing world.

That's exactly the problem: it's a lie!

A commercial company needs to make a profit to survive in the market. If it attempts to act as a charity, it has to lie. That was the first lie!

A commercial company has to serve it's customers. If it is beholden to a national government to serve it before its other customers, it has to lie. The was the 2nd lie!

Two gigantic lies that were inbred into the conception of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. These lies engendered numerous others lies about messed up vaccine trials, lies about efficacy, lies about overselling, lies about production shortfalls, lies about the contract, lies about requests for approval, lies about side effects that are killing young and healthy people.

Countries that ordered this vaccine because they believed in the lies about the "Oxford vaccine frontrunner" spread worldwide by the British media are screwed. They have to continue using this vaccine even though it would never have been approved without the pandemic.

After starting vaccination in the UK in December, AZ delayed requesting approval in the EU until late January to hide it's production shortfalls, even though according to contract it should have informed the EU immediately.

If AstraZeneca hadn't tried to hide its problems from the regulators and the customers, we could have ordered other vaccines earlier. Now it's too late to order other vaccines because the order books are full until the end of the year.

But to AZ, it's sales contract with the EU is not worth the paper it is printed on, just like Johnson doesn't mind unilaterally violating the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. A trading nation that doesn't respect contracts is finished.

Re: non-profit: the AZ vaccine was sold by the Serum Institute to South Africa for 2.5 times the price paid by Western governments. After AZ announced a supply cut of 60% to the EU, the Czech government and 3 other Eastern European governments were offered AZ vaccines via a ME middlemen at an astronomical price. AZ and it's dozens of subcontractors, subsidiaries, licensees has ample opportunity to juggle internal costs so as to benefit from the vaccine. Anyways, the non-profit pledge ends June or July, 2021, after which the company is free to profit from the vaccines and the vaccine business it has established thanks to the Oxford vaccine.

The low price of the AZ vaccine comes at enormous health and economic costs. It would have been a lot cheaper to buy more expensive vaccines from commercial manufacturers.