The EU v UK vaccine tussle

[NRS]

Vanden Saab said:

You do not have to guess the answer is in the supply agreement I quoted above. The licence agreement signed on May 17th included obligations on AZ to supply to the UK Gov. or as the supply agreement states 'The Purchaser through a Central Government Body is a third party beneficiary of certain rights granted in its favour under the Licence Agreement'
The UK Gov. had AZ production tied up as a requirement for giving them the £65 million and the licence to develop it.

It is guessing, because we don't know the resource split that AZ did between the European factories and British ones. There seems to clearly have been the bigger spend up front by the UK to secure production ASAP. Kate Bingham mentioned the government also spent/ facilitated whatever it could do to ramp up production ASAP too. In this case the contract means very little, as the important thing was the early spend and help given to AZ.

The contract becomes important if we discover that say 90% of the money/people etc from all across AZ went into getting the British factories up and running early, with the result there would have to be less focus on the European ones. That could cause/increase the difference in success too. If this is the case then the contract becomes much more important, as it basically would have been forcing AZ to prioritse the UK. We have to guess as we don't know the resource split from AZ between the UK and Europe through time.

[isaldiri]

Wombat3 said:

Yes because it doubles much faster. B117 has been on manouevres for some weeks under the radar on the continent. Total case numbers in France (for example) have remained fairly static for a while which suggests it is close to the tipping point. This because while cases of the original strain are falling the new one is rising. As that starts to outstrip the first one then case numbers will start to rise because its much more infectious.

Indeed topic of the day from Dr J Campbell : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OrgaMF5QpU

You might want to look at welsh infection rates over december. adjusted for population infections per population were as high if not higher than London and the southeast and with low rates of B117 that never actually significantly increased until cases starting falling sharply.

The supposedly far more transmissible B117 variant still got knocked in infections with lockdown 3 despite far less ideal weather conditions and overall mobility from workers than lockdown 1. The variant might be theoretically more transmissible but it is very clearly not the major factor in whether infections are increasing or not as that's simply a factor of population behaviour. If cases are going to increase in europe it isn't obviously due to super special UK variant as it's been increasing in prevalence while cases in many countries have been tanking.

[768]

DeltonaS said:

Plus in the coming weeks and months more vaccins are getting on the market; EMA has given the Janssen(Johnson & Johnson) vaccine a conditional market access last week for example. They've been producing for months already. The Janssen vaccine by the way only needs 1 jab.

The Janssen uses the same technology as the AZ and unsurprisingly seems to perform similarly to a single AZ dose.

I'm not sure that changes anything. Well, other than EU leaders haven't slagged it off but there's plenty of time for that.

[JagLover]

Vanden Saab said:

The figures are interesting, We have over 1.4 million active cases and 2273 serious cases while Germany have 128,349 active cases and yet 3057 are serious. All according to Worldometer.

Different countries have different testing rates and (I believe) often different criteria on what constitutes a positive test.

Hospitalisations and deaths are probably better criteria for comparing different countries (though even there there will be differences in how they are accounted for).

[DeltonaS]

Lily the Pink said:

jsf said:

DeltonaS said:

5 months should be enough, we don't need to vaccinate evreyone.

Plus in the coming weeks and months more vaccins are getting on the market; EMA has given the Janssen(Johnson & Johnson) vaccine a conditional market access last week for example. They've been producing for months already. The Janssen vaccine by the way only needs 1 jab.

Given the latter If those numbers from Scotland can be scientifically proven, we could change the strategy. But only than IMO.

You need over 70% vaccine/antibody in the general population to start getting the benefits of herd immunity.

According to https://covidvax.live/, the last EU country currently predicted to reach 70% coverage is the Netherlands which will get there at the end of March 2023. That's 25 months, rather than the 5 months DeltonaS expects; illustrates his/her grasp on reality !

I'm glad my reality isn't some website that just extrapolates the slow start that we've experienced.

The largest portion of the Dutch vaccination programm is the Janssen vaccine. Like I said they've been producing the vaccine for about 6 months now, so should have a decent stock.

If that get's on the market in the coming weeks + the other vaccines, we can accelerate.

By the way; we've had a vacination programm in the NL's in I believe 2006 for the Mexican Flue, in 6 weeks everyone was vaccinated.

[768]

Vaccine stock doesn't seem to be the key bottleneck.

[isaldiri]

DeltonaS said:

EMA has given the Janssen(Johnson & Johnson) vaccine a conditional market access last week for example.

Nope the EMA absolutely hasn't given conditional access. J&J have applied for conditional market authorisation to the EMA. It's not exactly the same thing.

Given how much time the EMA took to approve the Pfizer and other vaccines, the J&J one might take a while to get approval as well.

[anonymous-user]

Does Deltona ever get anything correct?

The mexican flu was 2009 as well.

[rdjohn]

Oilchange said:

Yes,

" having been tested positive in the last 28 days* " is the phrase or something very much like it.

So anyone with a terminal condition who sadly passed away from it but happened to be tested positive* regardless of symptons?

...and conversely, anyone who lingers on with Covid, for more than 28-days before dying, are not included in the figures. That is probably a big underscore, and is why excess deaths are frequently reported.

[don'tbesilly]

isaldiri said:

Nope the EMA absolutely hasn't given conditional access. J&J have applied for conditional market authorisation to the EMA. It's not exactly the same thing.

Given how much time the EMA took to approve the Pfizer and other vaccines, the J&J one might take a while to get approval as well.

Not that far off apparently:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavi...

[anonymous-user]

rdjohn said:

...and conversely, anyone who lingers on with Covid, for more than 28-days before dying, are not included in the figures. That is probably a big underscore, and is why excess deaths are frequently reported.

Since 12 August, two measures have been published. Firstly, the number of people who died within 28 days of their positive test. Secondly, the number of people who either died within 60 days of a first positive test, or who died more than 60 days after a positive test but had Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/measuri...

[Tony427]

jsf said:

Does Deltona ever get anything correct?

The mexican flu was 2009 as well.

Perhaps the wave started in 2006 and just continued until 2009...........

[anonymous-user]

Tony427 said:

Perhaps the wave started in 2006 and just continued until 2009...........

Very good.

[768]

don'tbesilly said:

isaldiri said:

Nope the EMA absolutely hasn't given conditional access. J&J have applied for conditional market authorisation to the EMA. It's not exactly the same thing.

Given how much time the EMA took to approve the Pfizer and other vaccines, the J&J one might take a while to get approval as well.

Not that far off apparently:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavi...

It's further down the road with the MHRA, who've been waiting a month since when they expected Janssen to provide the final data, after which it'd take them a couple of weeks to approve if all went well. Not expected to supply doses until second half of the year.

[Blib]

Ursula Von der Leyen doubles down.

EU is 'catching up' with UK on coronavirus vaccinations, says Ursula von der Leyen

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/24/eu-cat...

[Blib]

Blib said:

Ursula Von der Leyen doubles down.

EU is 'catching up' with UK on coronavirus vaccinations, says Ursula von der Leyen

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/24/eu-cat...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/24/astrazeneca-expected-to-miss-eu-covid-vaccine-supply-target-by-half-in-second-quarter-report?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[andymadmak]

Blib said:

Ursula Von der Leyen doubles down.

EU is 'catching up' with UK on coronavirus vaccinations, says Ursula von der Leyen

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/24/eu-cat...

Paywalled. Summary?

[CraigyMc]

andymadmak said:

Paywalled. Summary?

Open it in an incognito window or switch off javascript on your browser. It's not paywalled then.

[Blib]

andymadmak said:

Paywalled. Summary?

I added the Guardian link.

[Jezza30]

andymadmak said:

Blib said:

Ursula Von der Leyen doubles down.

EU is 'catching up' with UK on coronavirus vaccinations, says Ursula von der Leyen

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/24/eu-cat...

Paywalled. Summary?

The European Union is catching up with Britain on coronavirus vaccinations, Ursula von der Leyen said, as she branded the British strategy of delaying the second dose as too risky.

The president of the European Commission responded to criticism that the EU vaccination roll out was too slow by pointing out that 130 countries in the world had had no jabs at all.

Mrs von der Leyen said more than twice the number of Italians than Britons had had both jabs and the EU as a whole had given out more first doses.

“We're catching up. Britain has administered 17 million first doses. There are 27 million in the EU. In Italy, with a population similar to that of Great Britain, twice as many citizens received full vaccination protection with the second dose as in the UK,” she said.

She told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper, “I think it's risky to simply postpone the second vaccination. We should adhere to the specifications that the manufacturers determined in their extensive clinical tests.”

27.47 doses per 100 people have been administered in the UK, compared to just 6.12 across the EU. 5.7 jabs per 100 people have been given in France and 6.1 in Germany.

Mrs von der Leyen said she could understand the “frustration” felt by many EU citizens as the bloc lagged behind Britain, the US, Israel and Turkey in vaccinations.

The former German defence minister added, “Nobody has been vaccinated in 130 countries around the world. Europe is among the first, albeit with fewer doses in the start-up phase than expected.”

Britain used faster emergency authorisation procedures to approve vaccines than the EU. The UK negotiated to secure the doses alone after rejecting an offer from Brussels last year to join the EU joint procurement scheme.

Britain’s vaccination strategy was far more successful than the EU’s failed and slow response to the coronavirus pandemic, Hungary’s prime minister said.

“We’ve sought to do something together that we could have managed more successfully on an individual basis – take a look at the examples of Britain or Serbia,” Viktor Orbán said.

EU leaders will call for the continuation of tight coronavirus restrictions, including bans on non-essential travel such as holidays on Thursday, four days after Boris Johnson set out his roadmap out of lockdown.

They will call for the acceleration of “authorisation, production and distribution of vaccines, as well as vaccination, in the weeks and months to come”, according to leaked draft conclusions for their Thursday video summit.

Mrs von der Leyen said that she “would take the AstraZeneca vaccine without a second thought,” after reports in Germany and elsewhere in Europe that people were reluctant to have the jab.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was falsely described as ineffectual by Emmanuel Macron and inaccurate news reports in Germany claimed it was ineffective during the row with the EU over supply shortfalls.

AstraZeneca told the European Commission it will deliver less than half the vaccines it promised for the second quarter, an EU official told Reuters on Tuesday.

The British-Swedish pharmaceutical company said it would strive to fulfil its contracted 180m vaccines.