Talking of Pfizer, they've now hired Novartis to help out with the manufacturing. Probably only a question of time until AZ does a similar thing and those externally made doses could then very well get around export restrictions depending on which company they hire.
I think things are going seriously wrong here. It's one think that the german medicine regulator says that there is insufficient evidence on effectiveness in over-65s for the AZ vaccine. That's a matter of statistics and how assureded you want to be. It's another think when the French president spouts that it is "quasi-ineffective” on people older than 65". France has a serious problem with anti-vax, not just on the hard right and this will no doubt be posted all over whatever social media far faster than the any public information on vaccine safety and effectiveness. Hell even Trump managed to just ignore the vaccine rollout, not sabotage it. The vaccine supply row isn't making a bunch of sense either. You can demand that AZ shift supply and publish bits of a contract, but they aren't taking them to court. They you have talk of export controls to perhaps prevent a US-German vaccine supplied on commercial terms) being exported to the UK, in order to somehow pressure a UK-Swedish company to divert supply, on the basis of a contract signed 3 months later and somehow imagine that if they did block exports of the Pz/BNT to that there wouldn't be a tiny little bit of political pressure in the UK to retaliate by blocking the export of the vaccine there are trying to procure. Now this might seem to be just BAU after talking fish for months but the difference is that this is a sensitive matter and plenty of people are scared and/or frustrated by the virus and resulting lockdowns and we really need politicians and public figures to take the temperature down a notch. If there really is a contractual issue with AZ, then get a socially distanced plane-load of expensive lawyers on the case and sort it out in private rather than playing to the gallery. Creating scapegoats and blaming foreign companies only ever ends up helping the fringe nutters, so expect to see Farage, Le Pen and the rest get to have their fun out of this one.
Background context on the whole procurement issue https://www.theguardian.com/society...ow-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race But I still feel the political hot air is the more worrying aspect.
Talks have apparently restored the Northern Ireland protocol. The EU as an entity is used to doing some things (negotiating trade deals) but I don't think it has previously had much of a public health role. It's showing its inexperience in procurement, much like the private ppe debacle in the UK.
Health is not an EU competency. Its health budget is about 0.5% that of the NHS budget. But the EU was in a dammed if you do, damned if you don't situation: if it left vaccine procurement and distribution to individual member states, wealthier members would hoover up all the available vaccines and steam ahead, while poorer members were left behind, this threatening unity and people wondering what good EU membership actually was. If it took control of it, it was dabbling in a field in which it had little competence and experience, with the risk of screwing up, and individual member states taking back control, leading to aforementioned scenario of wealthier members hoovering up all the available vaccines and steaming ahead, while poorer members are left behind, threatening unity and people wondering what good EU membership actually was. This all happening at a time when the Netherlands, France and Italy are all heading into general elections in which the EU's performance during the pandemic is likely to play a significant role in whether a Europhile or Eurosceptic party will win the day. Ironically I believe that the EU would have done better if the UK had still been a member. The EMA was based in London, and the UK has huge public health expertise through the NHS, and likely would have exerted strong influence to move things along in both licensing and procurement. But we are where we are, and the EU done ****ed up big on this occasion. All it can now do is learn quickly from its mistakes and adjust its strategy.
Well the EU Commission have made a right mess of this on a Trumpian level, even drawing criticism from the WHO. Talking of Trump, Macron comes out with the AZ vaccine being "quasi-ineffective" in over-65s but says he has no evidence for this. I mean WTF?!? Is this Trumpitis that spread to Boris, now Macron and the EU Commission? I agree @Nexxo , I think things may very well be different if the UK was still in there. I do worry for the member states, particularly if you're not called France or Germany.
Sadly, this was always going to be the case - someone was inevitably going to come out with this based on the testing group populations. However, I would hope that they monitor those currently receiving the vaccines as a (regrettably unfortunate) guinea pig group and track their progress/hospitalisation rates. This has pretty much been the main problem all along.
Macron is a highly educated fellow. It's hard to think he really didn't know the difference between unproven and ineffective. To make it worse, France has the worst anti-vax problem in Europe, he ought to be thinking about that too.
Macron is feeling the hot breath of Le Pen down his neck. Meanwhile the French Sanofi vaccine has also run into problems, which he may feel is an international embarrassment.
We spoke to a friend of ours at one of the drug/pharma companies this week to see what opinion she had (she does a lot of work with AZ too) and she came out with a couple of surprising comments. Not one of the doctors they liaise with is happy about the mass vaccine rollout given the haste with which it's been put through; not only that, but she wouldn't take it herself knowing what she knows about the processes. And this is from a person who caught the virus last April and is still laid out by it - a good day for her is apparently being able to make it through having a shower and reaching the sofa.
But why aren't they happy and why wouldn't she take it? Reports that someone spoke to someone who said they wouldn't take it but not why are how the anti-vax rumours get spread.
See previous post. The usual processes and tests she normally sees with a new launch haven't all taken place - this is not news. Google will tell you which ones or I'll ask her when we next speak. When I called, I was actually looking for her to allay my concerns and validate taking it. Clearer?
The AZ vaccine went through the proper public trials process and was found to be safe and effective, same for the Pfizer vaccine. I'm in group 7 of the 8 priority groups and won't hesitate when my time comes.
I mean not really actually to me, you've mostly repeated yourself and said you can google it for actual details.
