Family member told me they wouldn't take a Johnson jab if offered, given the 66% effectiveness. Hope that is not common, albeit it'll be some time before it occurs.
I think the government do need to a better job of communicating all these vaccines have an incredible high level of protect against serious illness. I don't want Covid, but if i got a bad flu for a week, that isn't the same as being in ICU because I didn't get a jab because it only stopped me getting covid with 66% efficacy.
J&J wasn't 100% (or very close) at stopping serious illness though, unlike AZN. It was 85% I think?
I suspect it will be turned into a two dose jab and will then be more or less equivalent to AZN given the technology is similar. Isn't there a trial being run to that effect?
I think some people are also overlooking that the early vaccines were trialled when the arguably more dangerous variants weren't circulating.
True. The Chinese vaccine only being 50.4% effective in the Brazilian trial was probably down to it being tested against a bad variant.
The results from Novavax were against Kent covid though, which was very encouraging.
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
Family member told me they wouldn't take a Johnson jab if offered, given the 66% effectiveness. Hope that is not common, albeit it'll be some time before it occurs.
Did you tell them it's almost completely effective at preventing serious illness?
Yep to be honest I don't care if I get it if it means I feel rough for a couple of days but don't get seriously ill. Whilst I would prefer a jab that stops any chance (I know there aren't any) a jab that keeps me out of hospital sounds good enough for me.
Family member told me they wouldn't take a Johnson jab if offered, given the 66% effectiveness. Hope that is not common, albeit it'll be some time before it occurs.
I think the government do need to a better job of communicating all these vaccines have an incredible high level of protect against serious illness. I don't want Covid, but if i got a bad flu for a week, that isn't the same as being in ICU because I didn't get a jab because it only stopped me getting covid with 66% efficacy.
J&J wasn't 100% (or very close) at stopping serious illness though, unlike AZN. It was 85% I think?
I suspect it will be turned into a two dose jab and will then be more or less equivalent to AZN given the technology is similar. Isn't there a trial being run to that effect?
Still, I wouldn't turn it down.
100% against hospitalisation still, so the severe disease was presumably not of the life threatening or permanent life changing type.
"The vaccine candidate was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease across all regions studied, [i] 28 days after vaccination in all adults 18 years and older. Efficacy against severe disease increased over time with no cases in vaccinated participants reported after day 49.
The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate demonstrated complete protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death, 28 days post-vaccination. There was a clear effect of the vaccine on COVID-19 cases requiring medical intervention (hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), with no reported cases among participants who had received the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, 28 days post-vaccination."
My 80-year old Dad has got a letter but doesn't want to go to Superdrug in central Basingstoke to queue up to get it in his condition, and would prefer to wait for it to be offered at his local surgery.
Is that feasible? Or will he risk just losing his place and being forgotten about in the bureaucracy?
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Not really - it just shows the reality of how they work and think
It's notable - if you follow through her career - that she follows a pattern
- Comes in to reshape a department/organisation. Big change coming etc. - Pay no attention to the real issues. - Creates a car crash, often involving contractual obligations. - Gets promoted in the nick of time.
My 80-year old Dad has got a letter but doesn't want to go to Superdrug in central Basingstoke to queue up to get it in his condition, and would prefer to wait for it to be offered at his local surgery.
Is that feasible? Or will he risk just losing his place and being forgotten about in the bureaucracy?
There is an online system where you can select from a load of locations. One you have had a letter you can basically just go on the website and pick. The government have made it as easy as possible for people to be picky about when and where / not lose a place in the queue.
On the dangers of paying too much attention to the opinion polls - public backs wholesale cull of grannies to save fit twentysomething policemen from a cough.
All those aged 50 and over have been placed in groups 1 to 9 of the first phase of the distribution effort, as well as those most vulnerable to the disease. Maggie Wearmouth, another member of the JCVI, said: “Our duty is to protect the most vulnerable members of society as quickly and efficiently as possible. Every time you vaccinate one person, you are denying that opportunity to someone else. The vaccine rollout for priority groups 1-4 is going really well at the moment. Proceeding swiftly with groups 5-9 is the best way to ensure the protection of most of the groups asking for priority consideration.”
The latest Opinium poll for the Observer found that almost 94% of the public think there must be some workers that qualify for vaccine priority, either alongside or above some older age groups. More than half (54%) backed prioritisation for teachers, and a similar proportion (53%) backed the move for police.
Family member told me they wouldn't take a Johnson jab if offered, given the 66% effectiveness. Hope that is not common, albeit it'll be some time before it occurs.
I think the government do need to a better job of communicating all these vaccines have an incredible high level of protect against serious illness. I don't want Covid, but if i got a bad flu for a week, that isn't the same as being in ICU because I didn't get a jab because it only stopped me getting covid with 66% efficacy.
J&J wasn't 100% (or very close) at stopping serious illness though, unlike AZN. It was 85% I think?
I suspect it will be turned into a two dose jab and will then be more or less equivalent to AZN given the technology is similar. Isn't there a trial being run to that effect?
Still, I wouldn't turn it down.
100% against hospitalisation still, so the severe disease was presumably not of the life threatening or permanent life changing type.
"The vaccine candidate was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease across all regions studied, [i] 28 days after vaccination in all adults 18 years and older. Efficacy against severe disease increased over time with no cases in vaccinated participants reported after day 49.
The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate demonstrated complete protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death, 28 days post-vaccination. There was a clear effect of the vaccine on COVID-19 cases requiring medical intervention (hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), with no reported cases among participants who had received the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, 28 days post-vaccination."
Ah, many thanks, I missed that. "Severe disease" is a bit ambiguous and I assumed it meant hospital.
The second jab is booked for mid-April. Have you had yours Nick?
Don't bank on that if it's the Pfizer jab, Mike. I know that Michael Gove has gone on record saying that the Government is not worried about 2nd doses being interrupted by the EU, but that seems to be window dressing. It's not in our Government's hands. Even if some reassurance has been given behind the scenes, it would still come down to whether this country can place any trust in the word of a mendacious EU Commission and the likes of Macron, and the answer to that is obvious now. It seems foolhardy at this point not to start giving some 2nd doses to the very early Pfizer cases, at least to reduce the backlog if everything goes pear shaped and exports from Pfizer plans in the EU are suddenly halted.
The UK does still have some control. They could opt to store all Pfizer they have left and just use AZN for the next couple of months. That it suboptimal, but one potential approach.
I don't follow your reasoning. Assuming that the current limiting factor in the rate of vaccinations is the rate of supply of both the AZ and Pfizer vaccines, you might just as well start giving the 2nd jabs now rather than reduce the rate of vaccination while stocks of the Pfizer vaccine are left in storage.
My 80-year old Dad has got a letter but doesn't want to go to Superdrug in central Basingstoke to queue up to get it in his condition, and would prefer to wait for it to be offered at his local surgery.
Is that feasible? Or will he risk just losing his place and being forgotten about in the bureaucracy?
There is an online system where you can select from a load of locations. One you have had a letter you can basically just go on the website and pick. The government have made it as easy as possible for people to be picky about when and where / not lose a place in the queue.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Sounds good to me. Perhaps combined with giving ROI more of a direct helping hand as part of the CTA - bearing in mind that their share of the additional vaccines given to the EU will be very small.
Time to be nice and nasty. Start by helping Eire, Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. Then the Eastern Europeans who are increasingly fed up with the EU. Get help to Spain and Portugal and break down the barriers to Brits retiring there. We need to be friendly but self-interested. The Tories should be good at that.
Family member told me they wouldn't take a Johnson jab if offered, given the 66% effectiveness. Hope that is not common, albeit it'll be some time before it occurs.
I think the government do need to a better job of communicating all these vaccines have an incredible high level of protect against serious illness. I don't want Covid, but if i got a bad flu for a week, that isn't the same as being in ICU because I didn't get a jab because it only stopped me getting covid with 66% efficacy.
J&J wasn't 100% (or very close) at stopping serious illness though, unlike AZN. It was 85% I think?
I suspect it will be turned into a two dose jab and will then be more or less equivalent to AZN given the technology is similar. Isn't there a trial being run to that effect?
Still, I wouldn't turn it down.
100% against hospitalisation still, so the severe disease was presumably not of the life threatening or permanent life changing type.
"The vaccine candidate was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease across all regions studied, [i] 28 days after vaccination in all adults 18 years and older. Efficacy against severe disease increased over time with no cases in vaccinated participants reported after day 49.
The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate demonstrated complete protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death, 28 days post-vaccination. There was a clear effect of the vaccine on COVID-19 cases requiring medical intervention (hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), with no reported cases among participants who had received the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, 28 days post-vaccination."
Ah, many thanks, I missed that. "Severe disease" is a bit ambiguous and I assumed it meant hospital.
If the others are using the same definition and severe disease also covers housebound illnesses as well as hospitalisation it is truly remarkable that the vaccines are nearly all completely effective and created so quickly! Many thanks to the experts!
The second jab is booked for mid-April. Have you had yours Nick?
Don't bank on that if it's the Pfizer jab, Mike. I know that Michael Gove has gone on record saying that the Government is not worried about 2nd doses being interrupted by the EU, but that seems to be window dressing. It's not in our Government's hands. Even if some reassurance has been given behind the scenes, it would still come down to whether this country can place any trust in the word of a mendacious EU Commission and the likes of Macron, and the answer to that is obvious now. It seems foolhardy at this point not to start giving some 2nd doses to the very early Pfizer cases, at least to reduce the backlog if everything goes pear shaped and exports from Pfizer plans in the EU are suddenly halted.
The UK does still have some control. They could opt to store all Pfizer they have left and just use AZN for the next couple of months. That it suboptimal, but one potential approach.
I don't follow your reasoning. Assuming that the current limiting factor in the rate of vaccinations is the rate of supply of both the AZ and Pfizer vaccines, you might just as well start giving the 2nd jabs now rather than reduce the rate of vaccination while stocks of the Pfizer vaccine are left in storage.
Fair point. Although lots of people have been booked in for their 2nd jab, so it becomes even more hassle to start changing all that around to bring those forward.
Also remember AZN is providing the majority of the supply and ever increasing proportion, so stopping Pfizer jabs isn't like removing all the capacity.
Family member told me they wouldn't take a Johnson jab if offered, given the 66% effectiveness. Hope that is not common, albeit it'll be some time before it occurs.
Did you tell them it's almost completely effective at preventing serious illness?
Yep to be honest I don't care if I get it if it means I feel rough for a couple of days but don't get seriously ill. Whilst I would prefer a jab that stops any chance (I know there aren't any) a jab that keeps me out of hospital sounds good enough for me.
With all of the alarm about reinfection from Covid-19 I was reassured by an article I read in Nature today explaining to my unscientific mind that reinfection is not surprising, we can catch the coronavirus that causes a common cold over and over, but the body becomes better and better at dealing with it so over time one becomes asymptomatic, even if total immunity wanes. The article said that Covid-19 seems unexceptional for a coronavirus in that regard. People will probably be able to catch it twice but the second time the system knows what to do and knocks it on the head much quicker. I found that reassuring. Clearly don’t want to get it before I’m vaccinated some time in the Autumn but it bodes well for those that have and recovered. I am guessing similar principles apply to a vaccine.
Hate to trump OGH on the "medical procedures of the day" front but I`ve spent this afternoon in Oxford Hospital with a surgeon poking around in my right eyeball. It was like a horror film. Suspected retinal detachment - luckily was "just" a tear with a blood hemorrhage complication.
What a fun week I`ve had!
I should have sought attention a week earlier but Covid blah blah.
I can get you into see Rob Maclaren if you need - he still practices down at Nuffield. Lovely guy for an extraordinary scientist - world specialist in retinas
Thanks for that offer @Charles - I`ve made a note of his name. At the moment I`m Ok I think but I`ll let you know if this changes.
Family member told me they wouldn't take a Johnson jab if offered, given the 66% effectiveness. Hope that is not common, albeit it'll be some time before it occurs.
I think the government do need to a better job of communicating all these vaccines have an incredible high level of protect against serious illness. I don't want Covid, but if i got a bad flu for a week, that isn't the same as being in ICU because I didn't get a jab because it only stopped me getting covid with 66% efficacy.
Surely the point of the BBC is that it is objective and independent and we can rely on it to be trustworthy in loudly and regularly pointing out that all these vaccines have a high reliability. Surely, heaven forbid, it would soft peddle the issue because of base political prejudice?
My 80-year old Dad has got a letter but doesn't want to go to Superdrug in central Basingstoke to queue up to get it in his condition, and would prefer to wait for it to be offered at his local surgery.
Is that feasible? Or will he risk just losing his place and being forgotten about in the bureaucracy?
My 80-something-year old grandad was unwilling/unable to travel and they came to the house to give him the vaccine. I have no idea how that was arranged though. I could try and find out for you.
I'm glad these sinister propaganda videos are not a feature of British politics.
I'm glad we don't have traitors and seditionists in the House of Commons.
Technically we do with the Scottish National Party Sinn Féin.
Come now. We've had too much frothing about hanging and treason and the like from some of us on PB. And it depends on perspective. There is such a thing as economic sabotage.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Fantastic solution.
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Sounds good to me. Perhaps combined with giving ROI more of a direct helping hand as part of the CTA - bearing in mind that their share of the additional vaccines given to the EU will be very small.
Time to be nice and nasty. Start by helping Eire, Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. Then the Eastern Europeans who are increasingly fed up with the EU. Get help to Spain and Portugal and break down the barriers to Brits retiring there. We need to be friendly but self-interested. The Tories should be good at that.
We have never been to war with Portugal. A loyal friend. We need to remember that - and come to their aid.
I don't think many had the same take as Arlene Foster though. The Northern Ireland First Minister said Britain could help 'our neighbours in the Republic' to escape the EU vaccine crisis by offering spare AstraZeneca shots to the country. She suggested the offer may be conditional on Dublin accepting the post-Brexit Northern Ireland settlement is unsatisfactory.
Kwarteng on R4 doing very well. I don't see him as a future leader, but this sort of good performance isn't so common.
I used to know him fairly well many years ago, and I've dealt with Johnson briefly professionally. I'd say Kwasi is much more Prime Ministerial material than Boris, but would have less of an appeal to the Red Wall types.
Personal anecdote - Kwasi and I last met in the British Library in late '09 or early '10. Back then, it still looked more than likely that Cameron would get an overall majority. I said they would. He demurred. History has spoken and he was right.
Kwasi is an old friend of mine from college, and we were both fund managers in the Mayfair / St James's part of London for a decade.
He's a very bright and capable guy. And I hope he ascends to the very highest office in the land.
On the dangers of paying too much attention to the opinion polls - public backs wholesale cull of grannies to save fit twentysomething policemen from a cough.
All those aged 50 and over have been placed in groups 1 to 9 of the first phase of the distribution effort, as well as those most vulnerable to the disease. Maggie Wearmouth, another member of the JCVI, said: “Our duty is to protect the most vulnerable members of society as quickly and efficiently as possible. Every time you vaccinate one person, you are denying that opportunity to someone else. The vaccine rollout for priority groups 1-4 is going really well at the moment. Proceeding swiftly with groups 5-9 is the best way to ensure the protection of most of the groups asking for priority consideration.”
The latest Opinium poll for the Observer found that almost 94% of the public think there must be some workers that qualify for vaccine priority, either alongside or above some older age groups. More than half (54%) backed prioritisation for teachers, and a similar proportion (53%) backed the move for police.
No, the public thinks priorities can be adjusted as we come down the existing table. They may be right or wrong but the table was not handed down on tablets of stone. It takes no account of factors that we know increase vulnerability. Other countries have broadly similar but different priorities.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Fantastic solution.
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
IMO UK needs an emergency COVID summit with EU, where they all come out with intent to avoid further vaccine nationalism (which is easy to say, so they will need to share some bullet points of what it means in practice).
Surely you agree it’s better to try to manufacture a way forward of cooperation here, than naturally drift into something worse?
Any sense after this of winners and losers could set the mood for decades to come. And absolutely none of us want that to happen do we?
Kwarteng on R4 doing very well. I don't see him as a future leader, but this sort of good performance isn't so common.
I used to know him fairly well many years ago, and I've dealt with Johnson briefly professionally. I'd say Kwasi is much more Prime Ministerial material than Boris, but would have less of an appeal to the Red Wall types.
Personal anecdote - Kwasi and I last met in the British Library in late '09 or early '10. Back then, it still looked more than likely that Cameron would get an overall majority. I said they would. He demurred. History has spoken and he was right.
Kwasi is an old friend of mine from college, and we were both fund managers in the Mayfair / St James's part of London for a decade.
He's a very bright and capable guy. And I hope he ascends to the very highest office in the land.
Might he then be looking for a global policy adviser based in the US?
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
What do you do when the Eu doesn’t actually pay?
Or accuses the U.K. of charging more than they paid for the vaccines?
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Yes far better to give africa and the middle east vaccines as soon as possible...if they have to wait on the eu they might get them next century
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Sounds good to me. Perhaps combined with giving ROI more of a direct helping hand as part of the CTA - bearing in mind that their share of the additional vaccines given to the EU will be very small.
Time to be nice and nasty. Start by helping Eire, Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. Then the Eastern Europeans who are increasingly fed up with the EU. Get help to Spain and Portugal and break down the barriers to Brits retiring there. We need to be friendly but self-interested. The Tories should be good at that.
Gibraltar is not really helping others, given their status. They seem to have received plenty, as they'd be in second place globally for shots per hundred people. Albeit that's not many in pure numbers. https://twitter.com/GibraltarGov/status/1355531671999799298
Evening all. To answer the anxious concerns expressed last night by those who couldn’t form an opinion about the EU’s behaviour without my guidance, the Meeks view is that the EU made complete idiots of themselves.
Still, they managed to unite the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems, Sinn Fein, the DUP and the Irish government. So you have to congratulate them on that unprecedented achievement.
What you think, or what I think, does not count. What counts is what companies, with investment money to place, actually think and then where they put it.
On the dangers of paying too much attention to the opinion polls - public backs wholesale cull of grannies to save fit twentysomething policemen from a cough.
All those aged 50 and over have been placed in groups 1 to 9 of the first phase of the distribution effort, as well as those most vulnerable to the disease. Maggie Wearmouth, another member of the JCVI, said: “Our duty is to protect the most vulnerable members of society as quickly and efficiently as possible. Every time you vaccinate one person, you are denying that opportunity to someone else. The vaccine rollout for priority groups 1-4 is going really well at the moment. Proceeding swiftly with groups 5-9 is the best way to ensure the protection of most of the groups asking for priority consideration.”
The latest Opinium poll for the Observer found that almost 94% of the public think there must be some workers that qualify for vaccine priority, either alongside or above some older age groups. More than half (54%) backed prioritisation for teachers, and a similar proportion (53%) backed the move for police.
No, the public thinks priorities can be adjusted as we come down the existing table. They may be right or wrong but the table was not handed down on tablets of stone. It takes no account of factors that we know increase vulnerability. Other countries have broadly similar but different priorities.
I was being flippant but trying to make a point. When you ask people simple survey questions do they really think about the implications of their answers (and should we expect them to?) If the question is "should such and such a category of worthy person get jabbed as a priority?" then you're presumably going to get a different answer from some of the respondents at least to "should such and such a worthy person get jabbed before Granny, even if it means that Granny is more likely to die?" It just occurred to me when I read the poll numbers that were tacked on to the end of that piece. That's all.
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Yes. But very much yesterday’s news now. Now it’s the UK under pressure and it’s only going to get worse.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair. the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021. A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Sounds good to me. Perhaps combined with giving ROI more of a direct helping hand as part of the CTA - bearing in mind that their share of the additional vaccines given to the EU will be very small.
Time to be nice and nasty. Start by helping Eire, Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. Then the Eastern Europeans who are increasingly fed up with the EU. Get help to Spain and Portugal and break down the barriers to Brits retiring there. We need to be friendly but self-interested. The Tories should be good at that.
We have never been to war with Portugal. A loyal friend. We need to remember that - and come to their aid.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
What do you do when the Eu doesn’t actually pay?
Or accuses the U.K. of charging more than they paid for the vaccines?
I suppose the good news is if the big nations can do 100k a day while supplies are very constrained they should be well placed to ramp that up. If that is not an unusual daily figure for Italy then they seem to have blown through everything they had prior to the delays in delivery.
Hate to trump OGH on the "medical procedures of the day" front but I`ve spent this afternoon in Oxford Hospital with a surgeon poking around in my right eyeball. It was like a horror film. Suspected retinal detachment - luckily was "just" a tear with a blood hemorrhage complication.
What a fun week I`ve had!
I should have sought attention a week earlier but Covid blah blah.
I can get you into see Rob Maclaren if you need - he still practices down at Nuffield. Lovely guy for an extraordinary scientist - world specialist in retinas
Thanks for that offer @Charles - I`ve made a note of his name. At the moment I`m Ok I think but I`ll let you know if this changes.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Fantastic solution.
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
IMO UK needs an emergency COVID summit with EU, where they all come out with intent to avoid further vaccine nationalism (which is easy to say, so they will need to share some bullet points of what it means in practice).
Surely you agree it’s better to try to manufacture a way forward of cooperation here, than naturally drift into something worse?
Any sense after this of winners and losers could set the mood for decades to come. And absolutely none of us want that to happen do we?
I think it's pretty clear where you'd have stood on what to do about Germany c.1939.
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Yes. But very much yesterday’s news now. Now it’s the UK under pressure and it’s only going to get worse.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair. the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021. A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
I am genuinely impressed that the government didn't go all Daily Mail over the vaccine dispute with the EU. They appear to have gone behind the scenes, used diplomacy and resolved the issue.
The EU clearly paniced and lashed out stupidly and made mistakes. However within 48 hours cooler heads prevailed and they u-turned on vaccine exports and on the NI border issue and we are back to where we were mid-week.
In six months time, when the EU catches up with vaccinations, this whole episode will be seen as more of a storm in a tea cup rather than the cataclysmic event some of our more excitable posters seem to see it as.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Fantastic solution.
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
WTF? You guys live in a different world. I wonder if Sikandar Kemal has ever phoned anyone except to try and convince Darius Guppy not to beat up a journalist, but that if he does- though he shouldn´t- it would be kinda, sorta OK, but not really.
Hate to trump OGH on the "medical procedures of the day" front but I`ve spent this afternoon in Oxford Hospital with a surgeon poking around in my right eyeball. It was like a horror film. Suspected retinal detachment - luckily was "just" a tear with a blood hemorrhage complication.
What a fun week I`ve had!
I should have sought attention a week earlier but Covid blah blah.
I can get you into see Rob Maclaren if you need - he still practices down at Nuffield. Lovely guy for an extraordinary scientist - world specialist in retinas
Thanks for that offer @Charles - I`ve made a note of his name. At the moment I`m Ok I think but I`ll let you know if this changes.
To what extent are figures on vaccinations slightly skewed by differing strategy over approach to the second booster jab?
Exactly.
What's exactly about it? At the very most you could double the other tallies. And that doesn't account for AZN where a longer interval is preferred anyway.
Kwarteng on R4 doing very well. I don't see him as a future leader, but this sort of good performance isn't so common.
I used to know him fairly well many years ago, and I've dealt with Johnson briefly professionally. I'd say Kwasi is much more Prime Ministerial material than Boris, but would have less of an appeal to the Red Wall types.
Personal anecdote - Kwasi and I last met in the British Library in late '09 or early '10. Back then, it still looked more than likely that Cameron would get an overall majority. I said they would. He demurred. History has spoken and he was right.
Kwasi is an old friend of mine from college, and we were both fund managers in the Mayfair / St James's part of London for a decade.
He's a very bright and capable guy. And I hope he ascends to the very highest office in the land.
To what extent are figures on vaccinations slightly skewed by differing strategy over approach to the second booster jab?
Good question, although since our mass accelation really took off around early mid January, in our case most would not have been due their second jab yet even without the delayed booster? Particularly as AZ was always supposed to be on that schedule?
I believe Denmark are doing something similar, which is probably why they are also high in the table for the EU?
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Yes far better to give africa and the middle east vaccines as soon as possible...if they have to wait on the eu they might get them next century
"Giving" vaccines to "africa" is hardly a simple logistical task though. If anything the benefit will be far more about setting up the distribution chains rather than the actual vaccinations. Shouldn't really completely ignore that COVID arguably isn't quite as relatively* dangerous to many african countries
*given that it is most dangerous in elderly people and compared to all the other diseases that are just as high priority.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Sounds good to me. Perhaps combined with giving ROI more of a direct helping hand as part of the CTA - bearing in mind that their share of the additional vaccines given to the EU will be very small.
Time to be nice and nasty. Start by helping Eire, Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. Then the Eastern Europeans who are increasingly fed up with the EU. Get help to Spain and Portugal and break down the barriers to Brits retiring there. We need to be friendly but self-interested. The Tories should be good at that.
We have never been to war with Portugal. A loyal friend. We need to remember that - and come to their aid.
I joked a few days ago that, if only we could find about 20 million vaccines down the back of a sofa, we could rescue Portugal, form a closed bubble with them and then send them so many desperate, sun-starved, pasty British holidaymakers that we could rescue much of their tourist industry. It's quite impossible and silly, of course, but I get where you're coming from.
Biden’s team is still trying to locate upwards of 20 million vaccine doses that have been sent to states — a mystery that has hampered plans to speed up the national vaccination effort.
As of Saturday, 49 million doses of vaccine have been distributed by the federal government, but only 27 million administered by states, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
I suppose the good news is if the big nations can do 100k a day while supplies are very constrained they should be well placed to ramp that up. If that is not an unusual daily figure for Italy then they seem to have blown through everything they had prior to the delays in delivery.
Since in theory all the EU countries should have the same supply some are clearly doing a lot better than others. Among the bigger countries Spain (3.15). Italy (3.0) and Germany (2.7) are well ahead of France (1.99) and the Netherlands (1.32).
Biden’s team is still trying to locate upwards of 20 million vaccine doses that have been sent to states — a mystery that has hampered plans to speed up the national vaccination effort.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Fantastic solution.
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
WTF? You guys live in a different world. I wonder if Sikandar Kemal has ever phoned anyone except to try and convince Darius Guppy not to beat up a journalist, but that if he does- though he shouldn´t- it would be kinda, sorta OK, but not really.
I suppose the good news is if the big nations can do 100k a day while supplies are very constrained they should be well placed to ramp that up. If that is not an unusual daily figure for Italy then they seem to have blown through everything they had prior to the delays in delivery.
Since in theory all the EU countries should have the same supply some are clearly doing a lot better than others. Among the bigger countries Spain (3.15). Italy (3.0) and Germany (2.7) are well ahead of France (1.99) and the Netherlands (1.32).
The Dutch don't even seem to be trying. A small country with a dense population should be fairly easy to vaccinate. Its not like Canada where you are going to have to great distances to get to all those pockets of people.
I suppose the good news is if the big nations can do 100k a day while supplies are very constrained they should be well placed to ramp that up. If that is not an unusual daily figure for Italy then they seem to have blown through everything they had prior to the delays in delivery.
Since in theory all the EU countries should have the same supply some are clearly doing a lot better than others. Among the bigger countries Spain (3.15). Italy (3.0) and Germany (2.7) are well ahead of France (1.99) and the Netherlands (1.32).
The Dutch don't even seem to be trying. A small country with a dense population should be fairly easy to vaccinate.
The dense ones tend to be more susceptible to anti vaccination propaganda
I've had to repeatedly explain to various oldies that they will not receive the benefits of vaccination until at least two weeks afterwards and even then the risks are only reduced not removed.
Biden’s team is still trying to locate upwards of 20 million vaccine doses that have been sent to states — a mystery that has hampered plans to speed up the national vaccination effort.
It is quite astonishing and scary how the administrative incompetence of the Trump administration seems to barely registers in national political discussions.
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Yes. But very much yesterday’s news now. Now it’s the UK under pressure and it’s only going to get worse.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair. the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021. A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
WHO can say COVID vaccine should be a global business, but it seems to be getting regionalised.
They're absolutely stark raving bonkers.
The solution is not everyone waits for Buggins Turn. The solution is to get as much production as possible.
In the long run yes, but that takes time. Anyway, the issue is moot because it's politically impossible for the Government simply to get down as far as the 50 year olds and then let a load of young people come down with Long Covid and/or keep some kind of lockdown lite going for an extra year.
I suppose it's not unconceivable that the Government might be able to get away with slowing down a bit, but most likely they'll simply try to get everyone done as soon as possible, then look to see what they have available to give away.
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Yes. But very much yesterday’s news now. Now it’s the UK under pressure and it’s only going to get worse.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair. the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021. A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Yes. But very much yesterday’s news now. Now it’s the UK under pressure and it’s only going to get worse.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair. the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021. A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
WHO can say COVID vaccine should be a global business, but it seems to be getting regionalised.
They're absolutely stark raving bonkers.
The solution is not everyone waits for Buggins Turn. The solution is to get as much production as possible.
In the long run yes, but that takes time. Anyway, the issue is moot because it's politically impossible for the Government simply to get down as far as the 50 year olds and then let a load of young people come down with Long Covid and/or keep some kind of lockdown lite going for an extra year.
I suppose it's not unconceivable that the Government might be able to get away with slowing down a bit, but most likely they'll simply try to get everyone done as soon as possible, then look to see what they have available to give away.
No it doesn't take time, it takes money.
We've gotten vaccine production up and running in a matter of months. The technology is done and ready, its just a case of getting on with it. With investment its possible to get more production out within a matter of months, not years.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
What do you do when the Eu doesn’t actually pay?
Or accuses the U.K. of charging more than they paid for the vaccines?
Charging who, it's not as if we're asking for money for them? We're asking them to fund COVAX to a proper level.
If the EU reneges on its commitment to the world's poorest after taking vaccines given on the basis of funding commitments then it would really show what they are all about, even more than the last few days have.
Something like this gives everyone a way out of the hole the EU have dug. I don't see, at least in the short term, from where they will pick up ~70m worth of Q2 supply.
The world's biggest problem is going to be ensuring equitable access to vaccines, Europe has completely and utterly failed to fund that initiative. This gives us a way to leverage them to do that.
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Yes far better to give africa and the middle east vaccines as soon as possible...if they have to wait on the eu they might get them next century
"Giving" vaccines to "africa" is hardly a simple logistical task though. If anything the benefit will be far more about setting up the distribution chains rather than the actual vaccinations. Shouldn't really completely ignore that COVID arguably isn't quite as relatively* dangerous to many african countries
*given that it is most dangerous in elderly people and compared to all the other diseases that are just as high priority.
Well if we can help with the program should do that too. I also didnt say vaccinations I said vaccines. Many african and mid east countries will be capable of their own distribution when they have a few million vials. Those that can't we can help
I suppose the good news is if the big nations can do 100k a day while supplies are very constrained they should be well placed to ramp that up. If that is not an unusual daily figure for Italy then they seem to have blown through everything they had prior to the delays in delivery.
Since in theory all the EU countries should have the same supply some are clearly doing a lot better than others. Among the bigger countries Spain (3.15). Italy (3.0) and Germany (2.7) are well ahead of France (1.99) and the Netherlands (1.32).
The Dutch don't even seem to be trying. A small country with a dense population should be fairly easy to vaccinate. Its not like Canada where you are going to have to great distances to get to all those pockets of people.
It's been stated by some sources that the Netherlands barely bothered with Pfizer, because of the refrigeration requirements. Their plan was to wait for AZN....
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Fantastic solution.
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
Yes, being confrontational was never going to work. They have got no leverage over us.
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Yes. But very much yesterday’s news now. Now it’s the UK under pressure and it’s only going to get worse.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair. the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021. A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
I think I have a way out of this diplomatic spat for the EU and UK.
Clearly the EU needs many millions more vaccines in the near term, however there is pressure on the UK to start supplying it's spare doses from April onwards to developing nations and let the EU fend for itself because it's rich and can afford to build output.
There's a very good chance that from April we won't need ~20m Pfizer doses or ~50m AZ doses. That would be an invaluable boost to the European vaccination drive. We're going to be covered by supplies from Novavax and Moderna and long term we'll have J&J (up to 52m) + Valneva (60m) available for mutations.
The way out of this is to offer the EU our spare capacity on the basis that it funds COVAX to the same level we have. Our funding is equivalent of €4.5bn scaled to the EU vs ~€750m it has currently pledged via EU and national governments. The EU won't have anywhere it can get 70m vaccine doses from in the short term from April onwards and it will make a big difference to them and making our gift to them contingent on them properly funding COVAX makes a much, much bigger difference to developing nations than 70m doses ever could as it could be used to purchase 1.5bn additional doses of AZ vaccine or 1bn additional Novavax doses both of which are in the CEPI programme.
This way the EU gets its doses, it gets its "win" against the UK by getting UK vaccine supply it covets and the developing world gets funding for 1-1.5bn additional doses it doesn't currently have.
Anyone see any downsides?
Fantastic solution.
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
WTF? You guys live in a different world. I wonder if Sikandar Kemal has ever phoned anyone except to try and convince Darius Guppy not to beat up a journalist, but that if he does- though he shouldn´t- it would be kinda, sorta OK, but not really.
At this rate, some EU countries will only be using it on 18-21 year olds.
The eu and some european governments seem to have come down with a dose of insanity.
I also wont be surprised that after this crisis is in the past we will get the EU arguing that the reason it failed is that the eu doesn't have competence over health matters so should have from now on
BBC News - EU 'fiasco' on N Ireland heaps pressure on Commission
"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."
It's just amazing/bonkers that Ireland wasn't involved, or even told, of the upcoming decision.
Yes. But very much yesterday’s news now. Now it’s the UK under pressure and it’s only going to get worse.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair. the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021. A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
At this rate, some EU countries will only be using it on 18-21 year olds.
The eu and some european governments seem to have come down with a dose of insanity.
I also wont be surprised that after this crisis is in the past we will get the EU arguing that the reason it failed is that the eu doesn't have competence over health matters so should have from now on
I'm beginning to think this might actually be a co-ordinated strategy on the part of the EU to extract themselves from the embarrassment over not having any AZ vaccine to distribute.
After all, if it's not going to high priority groups then everyone can afford to wait.
Hate to trump OGH on the "medical procedures of the day" front but I`ve spent this afternoon in Oxford Hospital with a surgeon poking around in my right eyeball. It was like a horror film. Suspected retinal detachment - luckily was "just" a tear with a blood hemorrhage complication.
What a fun week I`ve had!
I should have sought attention a week earlier but Covid blah blah.
I can get you into see Rob Maclaren if you need - he still practices down at Nuffield. Lovely guy for an extraordinary scientist - world specialist in retinas
Thanks for that offer @Charles - I`ve made a note of his name. At the moment I`m Ok I think but I`ll let you know if this changes.
Comments
The results from Novavax were against Kent covid though, which was very encouraging.
https://www.jnj.com/johnson-johnson-announces-single-shot-janssen-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-met-primary-endpoints-in-interim-analysis-of-its-phase-3-ensemble-trial#:~:text=The vaccine candidate was 85,participants reported after day 49.
"The vaccine candidate was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease across all regions studied, [i] 28 days after vaccination in all adults 18 years and older. Efficacy against severe disease increased over time with no cases in vaccinated participants reported after day 49.
The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate demonstrated complete protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death, 28 days post-vaccination. There was a clear effect of the vaccine on COVID-19 cases requiring medical intervention (hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), with no reported cases among participants who had received the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, 28 days post-vaccination."
My 80-year old Dad has got a letter but doesn't want to go to Superdrug in central Basingstoke to queue up to get it in his condition, and would prefer to wait for it to be offered at his local surgery.
Is that feasible? Or will he risk just losing his place and being forgotten about in the bureaucracy?
- Comes in to reshape a department/organisation. Big change coming etc.
- Pay no attention to the real issues.
- Creates a car crash, often involving contractual obligations.
- Gets promoted in the nick of time.
She did this at least twice in German politics.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/book-coronavirus-vaccination/
All those aged 50 and over have been placed in groups 1 to 9 of the first phase of the distribution effort, as well as those most vulnerable to the disease. Maggie Wearmouth, another member of the JCVI, said: “Our duty is to protect the most vulnerable members of society as quickly and efficiently as possible. Every time you vaccinate one person, you are denying that opportunity to someone else. The vaccine rollout for priority groups 1-4 is going really well at the moment. Proceeding swiftly with groups 5-9 is the best way to ensure the protection of most of the groups asking for priority consideration.”
The latest Opinium poll for the Observer found that almost 94% of the public think there must be some workers that qualify for vaccine priority, either alongside or above some older age groups. More than half (54%) backed prioritisation for teachers, and a similar proportion (53%) backed the move for police.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/30/older-groups-must-remain-top-priority-for-vaccines-warn-government-advisers
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
Also remember AZN is providing the majority of the supply and ever increasing proportion, so stopping Pfizer jabs isn't like removing all the capacity.
Is Viking from the masked singer Morton Harket from A-Ha?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9205287/Send-surplus-jabs-Republic-Ireland-help-Irish-neighbours-Boris-Johnson-urged.html
This week would have gone much smoother for Brussels if UVDL had the decency to just call up Boris and say "we are struggling, please is there any way you can help" rather than making it a fight.
Has he walked off the show and come back again 3 times?
The Northern Ireland First Minister said Britain could help 'our neighbours in the Republic' to escape the EU vaccine crisis by offering spare AstraZeneca shots to the country.
She suggested the offer may be conditional on Dublin accepting the post-Brexit Northern Ireland settlement is unsatisfactory.
He's a very bright and capable guy. And I hope he ascends to the very highest office in the land.
Surely you agree it’s better to try to manufacture a way forward of cooperation here, than naturally drift into something worse?
Any sense after this of winners and losers could set the mood for decades to come. And absolutely none of us want that to happen do we?
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
https://twitter.com/GibraltarGov/status/1355531671999799298
What counts is what companies, with investment money to place, actually think and then where they put it.
“The World Health Organization has urged the UK to pause its vaccination programme after vulnerable groups have received their jabs to help ensure the global rollout of doses is fair.
the WHO said countries should be aiming for 2bn doses to be “fairly distributed” around the world by the end of 2021.
A WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, said she wanted to appeal to people in the UK, telling them: “You can wait” because ensuring equitable global distribution is “clearly morally the right thing to do”.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/30/who-urges-britain-to-pause-covid-jabs-after-treating-vulnerable
WHO can say COVID vaccine should be a global business, but it seems to be getting regionalised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Mountain_sheep#/media/File:White_Welsh_Mountain_sheep.jpg
My favourite was the stories he told me about the effect of using an ejector seat on retinal detachment (he was the RAF’s expert)
The solution is not everyone waits for Buggins Turn. The solution is to get as much production as possible.
The EU clearly paniced and lashed out stupidly and made mistakes. However within 48 hours cooler heads prevailed and they u-turned on vaccine exports and on the NI border issue and we are back to where we were mid-week.
In six months time, when the EU catches up with vaccinations, this whole episode will be seen as more of a storm in a tea cup rather than the cataclysmic event some of our more excitable posters seem to see it as.
Tory &%#4
Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine says some patients or their families wrongly believe the machines will kill them
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/30/exclusive-covid-patients-dying-unnecessarily-refuse-go-ventilators/
Question is whose nanochips are best - Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos?
I believe Denmark are doing something similar, which is probably why they are also high in the table for the EU?
*given that it is most dangerous in elderly people and compared to all the other diseases that are just as high priority.
As of Saturday, 49 million doses of vaccine have been distributed by the federal government, but only 27 million administered by states, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/30/biden-covid-vaccine-states-463953
Since most countries are still on first jabs "not much".
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3235887#Comment_3235887
I've had to repeatedly explain to various oldies that they will not receive the benefits of vaccination until at least two weeks afterwards and even then the risks are only reduced not removed.
I suppose it's not unconceivable that the Government might be able to get away with slowing down a bit, but most likely they'll simply try to get everyone done as soon as possible, then look to see what they have available to give away.
We've gotten vaccine production up and running in a matter of months. The technology is done and ready, its just a case of getting on with it. With investment its possible to get more production out within a matter of months, not years.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-vaccine-idUKKBN29Z0NA?taid=6015b73d7f7681000102e4c8&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
If the EU reneges on its commitment to the world's poorest after taking vaccines given on the basis of funding commitments then it would really show what they are all about, even more than the last few days have.
Something like this gives everyone a way out of the hole the EU have dug. I don't see, at least in the short term, from where they will pick up ~70m worth of Q2 supply.
The world's biggest problem is going to be ensuring equitable access to vaccines, Europe has completely and utterly failed to fund that initiative. This gives us a way to leverage them to do that.
Realistically, ensuring the passing around of surplus supplies to help those with not enough or none seems much more achievable.
I also wont be surprised that after this crisis is in the past we will get the EU arguing that the reason it failed is that the eu doesn't have competence over health matters so should have from now on
After all, if it's not going to high priority groups then everyone can afford to wait.