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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
At this rate, some EU countries will only be using it on 18-21 year olds.
We wait with bated breath for the NHS clinical data. Shouldn't be too many weeks before effectiveness in the elderly can be more accurately assessed. Now,
1. We must hope that we don't get the infamous 8% figure, or anywhere close. I know there's been some dispute on the site today as to how much of a role vaccination has or hasn't played in the especially steep drop off in cases seen in our oldest citizens, but early indications appear encouraging to me 2. Assuming that AZ is good enough to pass muster, it will be fascinating to see how long it takes some of these more sceptical national authorities to perform U-turns, if they do at all
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
...Like some kind of European Health Union?
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2041 Today, the European Commission is taking the first steps towards building the European Health Union announced by President von der Leyen in her State of the Union address. The Commission is putting forward a set of proposals to strengthen the EU's health security framework, and to reinforce the crisis preparedness and response role of key EU agencies
In fairness I don't actually know the extent of what is proposed.
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.
What makes you so sure they would not turn on us again if it suited them?
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
No one's storehouse has a mountain of grain, that's precisely the problem. The EU are not interested in helping anyone but themselves. Compare and contrast with the UK's commitments to help distribute vaccines to developing nations.
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.
You could ask the same of the current priority list, whose brush-strokes are necessarily broad. Why jab healthy 60-year-olds before 50-year-olds with diabetes or other confounding risk factors? You can apply the same sort of reasoning to almost anything. Should we build more houses? Should we build more houses even if statistics show that three construction workers will be killed in building site accidents?
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Perhaps the condemnation for hoarding should take place for when/if we actually start to hoard? We're certainly not there yet.
More dog food salesman mince, shows how desperate and certain to be defeated when that is the best the unionists can wheel out. Him , Tuba Blair and Broon dragged out of his crypt, a real winning team.
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 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.
What makes you so sure they would not turn on us again if it suited them?
They will undoubtedly turn on us whenever it suits, the number of agreements to do things they have reneged on is long
cf denmark for one and the agreement with blair to reform cap in return for us giving up some of the rebate for a second....anyone who trusts a single word the eu says should come to my house as I have a fine selection of bridges to sell
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
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 agree. But you are asking the EU to cough up 3.75 billion for 70m doses - about Eur50 per dose - so much more than we are paying
I know you are asking them to send it to a good cause but that nuance will be lost in the outrage about profiteering Brits
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
The WHO: "The UK should stop vaccinating when they've covered everyone over 65 and redirect all their vaccinations to developing nations"
The EU: "We've authorised 3 vaccines and are reserving one of them exclusively for our U55s"...
More dog food salesman mince, shows how desperate and certain to be defeated when that is the best the unionists can wheel out. Him , Tuba Blair and Broon dragged out of his crypt, a real winning team.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Out of interest at some point surely here in the UK we will hit a limit of just how many different types of vaccine we want to use at any one time, to avoid overcomplicating things. Pfizer, AZ, Moderna all MHRA approved (albeit only the first two actually being jabbed at the moment), Novavax and J&J next (presumably).
At what point (if any) do we start saying we don't want another manufacturer involved, or do we instead split them into two groups to have basically some companies doing the current mass vaccine production and some companies working on the next versions for the next variant, etc.?
More dog food salesman mince, shows how desperate and certain to be defeated when that is the best the unionists can wheel out. Him , Tuba Blair and Broon dragged out of his crypt, a real winning team.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Like that old joke "The food in this restaurant is terrible. And the portions are so small"
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Perhaps the condemnation for hoarding should take place for when/if we actually start to hoard? We're certainly not there yet.
You are wasting your breath he no doubt is one of those that thinks we shouldnt have any vaccines till after the europeans have all been vaccinated
Out of interest at some point surely here in the UK we will hit a limit of just how many different types of vaccine we want to use at any one time, to avoid overcomplicating things. Pfizer, AZ, Moderna all MHRA approved (albeit only the first two actually being jabbed at the moment), Novavax and J&J next (presumably).
At what point (if any) do we start saying we don't want another manufacturer involved, or do we instead split them into two groups to have basically some companies doing the current mass vaccine production and some companies working on the next versions for the next variant, etc.?
An interesting question. Naively, I would assume that number would be quite high, unless each has weird and unique storage requirements.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Perhaps the condemnation for hoarding should take place for when/if we actually start to hoard? We're certainly not there yet.
You are wasting your breath he no doubt is one of those that thinks we shouldnt have any vaccines till after the europeans have all been vaccinated
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Thats kind of fair, but in reality the reasons it wasnt tested on kids vs the elderly are key.
Not tested in elderly for ethical reasons as they are at most risk if the trials went badly. Not tested in kids as they are generally very low symptoms so not the priority.
So not jabbing kids doesnt cause significant harm, not jabbing the elderly does.
FWIW I think they should have tested more on the elderly anyway as other manufacturers did, but the comparison is not quite the same.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Its been tested on the older age groups. Its safe, produces antibodies and doesn't have bad side effects.
Its not been tested on children. It could have side effects we don't know about.
Out of interest at some point surely here in the UK we will hit a limit of just how many different types of vaccine we want to use at any one time, to avoid overcomplicating things. Pfizer, AZ, Moderna all MHRA approved (albeit only the first two actually being jabbed at the moment), Novavax and J&J next (presumably).
At what point (if any) do we start saying we don't want another manufacturer involved, or do we instead split them into two groups to have basically some companies doing the current mass vaccine production and some companies working on the next versions for the next variant, etc.?
An interesting question. Naively, I would assume that number would be quite high, unless each has weird and unique storage requirements.
At some point our initial orders of things like Pfizer are going to get used up, at which point we'll move on to the second wave. We've approved Moderna, for example, but we're way down the queue for that one.
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 agree. But you are asking the EU to cough up 3.75 billion for 70m doses - about Eur50 per dose - so much more than we are paying
I know you are asking them to send it to a good cause but that nuance will be lost in the outrage about profiteering Brits
Sure, if they do that then we can sell them on the open market and give the proceeds to COVAX ourselves for the Pfizer vaccine and just give the AZ one COVAX.
Ultimately they're ours and we should use them in a way that benefits the developing world the most. If Europe doesn't want to do that, other countries need to step up, and that includes us with more money and our vaccine surplus.
I think if they refused to take them because it would cost €3.75bn in COVAX funding then it would literally make them look completely selfish and idiotic to the whole world and the people of Europe.
Also, a fair price is what someone is willing to pay for something. I think, faced with the alternative (35m people not getting vaccinated) €3.75bn to purchase 1-1.5bn vaccines for the world's poor is a very good deal.
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'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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Thats kind of fair, but in reality the reasons it wasnt tested on kids vs the elderly are key.
Not tested in elderly for ethical reasons as they are at most risk if the trials went badly. Not tested in kids as they are generally very low symptoms so not the priority.
So not jabbing kids doesnt cause significant harm, not jabbing the elderly does.
FWIW I think they should have tested more on the elderly anyway as other manufacturers did, but the comparison is not quite the same.
It was tested on the elderly, over 600 elderly testers in the Phase III trial.
No children.
Its been tested but has a very wide confidence interval, that's an entirely different matter to being untested.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Surely there are issues of vulnerable groups and risks during surges in Covid-19 that play a part in whether those situations are the same, along with the general position that such a vaccine would be effective in the over 65s and because the physiological difference between a 64 year old and a 65 year old is less than between a child and an adult?
I think it's been accepted that regulators might make different decisions due to the level of data available relating to over 65s, but that is not the same as having no clue whether it has a reasonable chance of being effective, they have reason to think it would be but not the level of data they'd like. I've not previously seen anyone bring up the issue of vaccinating children so I just assumed you have to be more careful with kids as you cannot assume they need the same level as with adults.
So I'm not sure if the comparison is really apposite.
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
...Like some kind of European Health Union?
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2041 Today, the European Commission is taking the first steps towards building the European Health Union announced by President von der Leyen in her State of the Union address. The Commission is putting forward a set of proposals to strengthen the EU's health security framework, and to reinforce the crisis preparedness and response role of key EU agencies
In fairness I don't actually know the extent of what is proposed.
I'm not sure that it matters now. I know there's the old trope about the EU being an airport travellator carrying everyone slowly but relentlessly towards the departure gate of federalism, but some of the member states might be looking for tools with which to jam the mechanism after this.
Or, to put it another way, imagine Brexit had never happened, we were part of this mess as a result, and then the Commission proposed giving Ursula and Stella powers of direction over the NHS? One ventures to suggest that it might not go down too well?
It would be interesting to know how the UK agreements for future production in UK production plants work (given the potential need for ongoing access to vaccines in future). I would guess that there's some sort of long term agreement to have first call on a % of the supplies from them?
Out of interest at some point surely here in the UK we will hit a limit of just how many different types of vaccine we want to use at any one time, to avoid overcomplicating things. Pfizer, AZ, Moderna all MHRA approved (albeit only the first two actually being jabbed at the moment), Novavax and J&J next (presumably).
At what point (if any) do we start saying we don't want another manufacturer involved, or do we instead split them into two groups to have basically some companies doing the current mass vaccine production and some companies working on the next versions for the next variant, etc.?
We don't. Moderna and Pfizer are compatible in terms logistics and Novavax, AZ and J&J are compatible. You can use the existing network and just plug in the new jabs.
Though you're right on the latter part, with the J&J vaccine it might make sense to ask that it is adjusted to beat the Brazil and SA mutations or whatever else has popped up over the summer so it's ready to go before Xmas.
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
...Like some kind of European Health Union?
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2041 Today, the European Commission is taking the first steps towards building the European Health Union announced by President von der Leyen in her State of the Union address. The Commission is putting forward a set of proposals to strengthen the EU's health security framework, and to reinforce the crisis preparedness and response role of key EU agencies
In fairness I don't actually know the extent of what is proposed.
I'm not sure that it matters now. I know there's the old trope about the EU being an airport travellator carrying everyone slowly but relentlessly towards the departure gate of federalism, but some of the member states might be looking for tools with which to jam the mechanism after this.
Or, to put it another way, imagine Brexit had never happened, we were part of this mess as a result, and then the Commission proposed giving Ursula and Stella powers of direction over the NHS? One ventures to suggest that it might not go down too well?
Powers over health will probably be shoe horned into qmv so no individual country has a veto
The PM of Ethiopia is one busy guy. He achieved a lot in his first couple of years such that it was little surprise he got a Peace Prize, and year 3 is shaping up to be a rollercoaster ride.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Thats kind of fair, but in reality the reasons it wasnt tested on kids vs the elderly are key.
Not tested in elderly for ethical reasons as they are at most risk if the trials went badly. Not tested in kids as they are generally very low symptoms so not the priority.
So not jabbing kids doesnt cause significant harm, not jabbing the elderly does.
FWIW I think they should have tested more on the elderly anyway as other manufacturers did, but the comparison is not quite the same.
It was tested on the elderly, over 600 elderly testers in the Phase III trial.
No children.
Its been tested but has a very wide confidence interval, that's an entirely different matter to being untested.
Sure, tested on small samples but not tested to the normal standards for vaccine approval.
There is no doubt in my mind the strategy should be to use the vaccines on the elderly based on the data we do have, but equally it has not been tested as we would do if this wasnt an emergency situation.
I've spoken to someone this evening who simultaneously agrees with Labour (that teachers and other public sector workers should jump the queue ahead of five of the vulnerable categories) and the WHO (that the government should stop vaccinating after the vulnerable in order to distribute vaccines to the developing world).
The resolution of this apparent paradox is that they didn't know the detail of the Labour policy, and merely agreed with the sentiment that teachers needed to be vaccinated "earlier than 40 year old IT consultants".
Perhaps Labour knew what they were doing with that policy after all, since we all on here overestimate the extent to which people generally are aware of the detail. Opposing early vaccination of teachers is almost akin to kicking puppies. Why would anyone do that?
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
If it is right the French have some bizarrely low targets even taking into account supply issues. Are they simply under promising so they can under deliver?
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Except the reasons are completely different.
The manufacturers say they do believe it is effective on over 65s and the UK have taken them at their word. The Germans have decided to ignore the Manufacturers advice. We are now starting to see the results of that with a drop in incidence amongst the elderly which looks to be due to the vaccine. There is no evidence that it is actually unsafe for over 65s to take it.
The manufacturers of all the vaccines have also said they are not sure of the safety implications of giving the vaccines to children and so have recommended it not be given. Again the UK have followed the advice of the manufacturers.
Conflating the two is the sort of thing the anti-vaxxers do. Are you one of them?
That's a more encouraging tone and a blessed relief from some of the Europhobic mania that has been swirling around of late. Let's face it, the government must know that Boris's Brexit deal is sub-optimal and unsustainable and will want to get back in the EU's good books, in readiness for other negotiations further down the line. And I don't actually mean this as a criticism.
It looks to me like a mini version of the chaos in the US
The centre sends out vaccines. The supply chain is long and winding. Various localities have various policies on holding back jabs for seconds etc. The front end is poorly resourced.
The result - lots of stock up and down the line, and the logistics system starts to create "waves" of stock, moving around. Which makes things worse.
What you need is experts in logistics in control of the whole chain.
If it is right the French have some bizarrely low targets even taking into account supply issues. Are they simply under promising so they can under deliver?
I presume there 35hr work week might be an issue...
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
There have been a lot of stupid posts on this forum over the last 24 hours. That's right up there with them.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
Your meaning was obvious and you have always been one of the whiners who never gave britain credit for our help with covax but instead moaned we aren't doing enough to help rich europeans who can afford to help themselves but instead prefer to try and cheapskate....take your scrofulous self to coventry
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Thats kind of fair, but in reality the reasons it wasnt tested on kids vs the elderly are key.
Not tested in elderly for ethical reasons as they are at most risk if the trials went badly. Not tested in kids as they are generally very low symptoms so not the priority.
So not jabbing kids doesnt cause significant harm, not jabbing the elderly does.
FWIW I think they should have tested more on the elderly anyway as other manufacturers did, but the comparison is not quite the same.
It was tested on the elderly, over 600 elderly testers in the Phase III trial.
No children.
Its been tested but has a very wide confidence interval, that's an entirely different matter to being untested.
Sure, tested on small samples but not tested to the normal standards for vaccine approval.
There is no doubt in my mind the strategy should be to use the vaccines on the elderly based on the data we do have, but equally it has not been tested as we would do if this wasnt an emergency situation.
Isn't it the case that one of the conditions of volunteering for vaccine trials is that you're not supposed to get vaccinated afterwards (to maintain a control group for longer term effects). So you take the risk of getting the placebo and then missing out on the vaccine. So it really is quite difficult to convince elderly volunteers to go along with that, especially for a trial and authorisation programme run over a fraction of the normal time period.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
That's a more encouraging tone and a blessed relief from some of the Europhobic mania that has been swirling around of late. Let's face it, the government must know that Boris's Brexit deal is sub-optimal and unsustainable and will want to get back in the EU's good books, in readiness for other negotiations further down the line. And I don't actually mean this as a criticism.
I think the last 48 hours of utter EU incompetence must have just passed you by. Or rather sailed right over your head.
Are the French still doing the nonsense where you have to visit a GP first before you can be put forward to get a vaccine? That has to slow the whole process right down.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Safety tests aren't the same as efficacy tests. The AZ vaccine has been fully tested for safety in older age groups and passed them. It hasn't been safety tested for under 18s so there is no way it could be used.
Even a 60% efficacy (down from 70%) vaccine is still good as long as it's safe but for under 18s we'd have no idea that is safe.
Completely different things you're conflating here.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
You really like cake?
She said "brioche"?
She did, however his intent was laid bare when he then went on to say
"But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?"
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Thats kind of fair, but in reality the reasons it wasnt tested on kids vs the elderly are key.
Not tested in elderly for ethical reasons as they are at most risk if the trials went badly. Not tested in kids as they are generally very low symptoms so not the priority.
So not jabbing kids doesnt cause significant harm, not jabbing the elderly does.
FWIW I think they should have tested more on the elderly anyway as other manufacturers did, but the comparison is not quite the same.
It was tested on the elderly, over 600 elderly testers in the Phase III trial.
No children.
Its been tested but has a very wide confidence interval, that's an entirely different matter to being untested.
Sure, tested on small samples but not tested to the normal standards for vaccine approval.
There is no doubt in my mind the strategy should be to use the vaccines on the elderly based on the data we do have, but equally it has not been tested as we would do if this wasnt an emergency situation.
Isn't it the case that one of the conditions of volunteering for vaccine trials is that you're not supposed to get vaccinated afterwards (to maintain a control group for longer term effects). So you take the risk of getting the placebo and then missing out on the vaccine. So it really is quite difficult to convince elderly volunteers to go along with that, especially for a trial and authorisation programme run over a fraction of the normal time period.
Not sure how difficult it was but J&J had 34% of the volunteers in their trial, 14,672, over 60. AIUI Oxford took the view testing on the elderly was risky from an ethical point of view rather than pragmatic problems held them back.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
You really like cake?
She said "brioche"?
Well, she probably said neither, but I'm just ribbing him.
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.
Presumably they're hoping that the plebs haven't spotted the obvious inconsistency between demanding they get it now and thinking that it's not all that good.
EU: Your vaccine is rubbish, it doesn't work, we hate it, and it ... it ... it smells of poo!
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
Some pb posters: Germany is irrational for not jabbing older age groups where there is no proof of effectiveness.
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
Safety tests aren't the same as efficacy tests. The AZ vaccine has been fully tested for safety in older age groups and passed them. It hasn't been safety tested for under 18s so there is no way it could be used.
Even a 60% efficacy (down from 70%) vaccine is still good as long as it's safe but for under 18s we'd have no idea that is safe.
Completely different things you're conflating here.
Yup
Safety tests - no under 18s for most vaccines Safety tests - over 65s included for all vaccines.
Efficacy tests - no under 18s for most vaccines Efficacy tests - some over 65s included for all vaccines. But in a number of cases, not a big enough group to tighten the error bars to find a definitive number.
We were supposed have had 30 million doses by September, then they said 4 million by December no problemo, we got ~2 million at the start of January. Why do journalists write this kind of bollocks that we can easily check.
Astra triggered the crisis just over a week ago when it revealed it was cutting back planned vaccine supply to the EU by a reported 60% to 31 million doses following disruption at a plant in Belgium. At the same time, deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program race ahead of the continent.
Astra triggered the crisis just over a week ago when it revealed it was cutting back planned vaccine supply to the EU by a reported 60% to 31 million doses following disruption at a plant in Belgium. At the same time, deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program race ahead of the continent.
Author is....formerly BuzzFeed News and the Guardian....makes sense now. Naughty bad Big Pharma caused this.
Being bored silly of covid and brexit, and having always been bored silly of Scottish independence which seems to have had a surge on here over the last week, my absolute favourite story at the moment is Gamestop. On more left-wing corners of the internet there's a 'Hahaha look at these rich wall street traders losing money and these little people winning' thing going on. But will any fund on Wall street or in the City really lose much if they just cover themselves until the price returns to something sensible? Could any of them actually lose more than would just come out in the wash at the end of the year? And as for the little people, I know that if they get out at the right time they could make / have made a fortune, but I imagine a lot are going to lose their entire 4 or 5 figure savings, in order that some investment fund shaves 0.01% off their profit margin. Or is there are chance a fund's losses could be big?
And could someone explain to me how if you have to borrow stock in order to short It, it's possible for the total amount shorted to be 140% of stock, as I've seen mentioned somewhere.
Forgive me if there are any major misunderstandings in my post, it isn't my area!
I've spoken to someone this evening who simultaneously agrees with Labour (that teachers and other public sector workers should jump the queue ahead of five of the vulnerable categories) and the WHO (that the government should stop vaccinating after the vulnerable in order to distribute vaccines to the developing world).
The resolution of this apparent paradox is that they didn't know the detail of the Labour policy, and merely agreed with the sentiment that teachers needed to be vaccinated "earlier than 40 year old IT consultants".
Perhaps Labour knew what they were doing with that policy after all, since we all on here overestimate the extent to which people generally are aware of the detail. Opposing early vaccination of teachers is almost akin to kicking puppies. Why would anyone do that?
Labour's policy (copyright Angela Rayner) is clear. Everyone is a priority case. This includes teachers. No-one is pushed back in the queue by anyone being a priority case (eg teachers) because everyone is a priority case.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
Your meaning was obvious and you have always been one of the whiners who never gave britain credit for our help with covax but instead moaned we aren't doing enough to help rich europeans who can afford to help themselves but instead prefer to try and cheapskate....take your scrofulous self to coventry
You just have your head up high because you know what the truth is. Rather ignorant to how important perception actually is.
That’s the point I’m making. And it’s true isn’t it?
Because you are laying into me, who agrees with you. But look at what the WHO are saying who neither of us agree with.
We can’t just put our chin in the air, we have to manage perceptions. And that means, as I have been saying for days, doing something. I’m not saying it has to be a lot. But it has to be something.
The reply’s I get is**** *** to Coventry. You want to give all our good work away like Francis of Assisi. You have no intention of praising the U.K. government.
I’m just saying we need to do something to manage this, what could be damaging, long lasting perception.
Von der Leyen’s spokesman, Eric Mamer, said it’s an institutional reality that all decisions go through the president’s cabinet and the college of commissioners. No decisions are taken without college consensus, he added...
While the crucial sections on Northern Ireland were a late addition to the document, all relevant senior officials had been involved and had sight of the plan before it went live. Final signoff was the responsibility of von der Leyen’s office
So an oversight such as previously described is impossible, and they were lying? I still don't think any of them will be sacked because the Member states agree with the anger at AZ, just not this response, but this seems explosive - how can they escape at least some censure?
Astra triggered the crisis just over a week ago when it revealed it was cutting back planned vaccine supply to the EU by a reported 60% to 31 million doses following disruption at a plant in Belgium. At the same time, deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program race ahead of the continent.
'Mostly' doing some lifting here.
Some EU officials suspect that Astra was responsible for a portion of those shipments and should have kept back doses for European buyers. But they don’t have the evidence to prove it because the data aren’t broken down by manufacture
So why the f*ck did they make such claims so boldly if it cannot be proven?
And as expected, those pushing for the ridiculous raising of stakes?
By Tuesday evening, pressure began to mount from Germany, first, and then France, for a more stringent approach.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
Your meaning was obvious and you have always been one of the whiners who never gave britain credit for our help with covax but instead moaned we aren't doing enough to help rich europeans who can afford to help themselves but instead prefer to try and cheapskate....take your scrofulous self to coventry
You just have your head up high because you know what the truth is. Rather ignorant to how important perception actually is.
That’s the point I’m making. And it’s true isn’t it?
Because you are laying into me, who agrees with you. But look at what the WHO are saying who neither of us agree with.
We can’t just put our chin in the air, we have to manage perceptions. And that means, as I have been saying for days, doing something. I’m not saying it has to be a lot. But it has to be something.
The reply’s I get is**** *** to Coventry. You want to give all our good work away like Francis of Assisi. You have no intention of praising the U.K. government.
I’m just saying we need to do something to manage this, what could be damaging, long lasting perception.
I assume you are referring to the damaging, long lasting perception that the EU is suffering right now? because I can't see how the UK can be viewed as in the wrong on this particular issue.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
Your meaning was obvious and you have always been one of the whiners who never gave britain credit for our help with covax but instead moaned we aren't doing enough to help rich europeans who can afford to help themselves but instead prefer to try and cheapskate....take your scrofulous self to coventry
You just have your head up high because you know what the truth is. Rather ignorant to how important perception actually is.
That’s the point I’m making. And it’s true isn’t it?
Because you are laying into me, who agrees with you. But look at what the WHO are saying who neither of us agree with.
We can’t just put our chin in the air, we have to manage perceptions. And that means, as I have been saying for days, doing something. I’m not saying it has to be a lot. But it has to be something.
The reply’s I get is**** *** to Coventry. You want to give all our good work away like Francis of Assisi. You have no intention of praising the U.K. government.
I’m just saying we need to do something to manage this, what could be damaging, long lasting perception.
And others are saying why are you acting like it is damaging perceptions now, when we aren't yet in a position to help?
That's a more encouraging tone and a blessed relief from some of the Europhobic mania that has been swirling around of late. Let's face it, the government must know that Boris's Brexit deal is sub-optimal and unsustainable and will want to get back in the EU's good books, in readiness for other negotiations further down the line. And I don't actually mean this as a criticism.
I would suggest it is the EU nwho need to get in the UK's good books after these last few days
That's a more encouraging tone and a blessed relief from some of the Europhobic mania that has been swirling around of late. Let's face it, the government must know that Boris's Brexit deal is sub-optimal and unsustainable and will want to get back in the EU's good books, in readiness for other negotiations further down the line. And I don't actually mean this as a criticism.
I think the last 48 hours of utter EU incompetence must have just passed you by. Or rather sailed right over your head.
Well no. I mentioned the EU's blunders down thread and the reasons why I thought they happened. Nevertheless, I do think there's something of the Pasty Tax about this current situation - a more serious subject matter, of course, but essentially media driven, ephemeral and tendentious.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
You really like cake?
She said "brioche"?
She did, however his intent was laid bare when he then went on to say
"But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?"
😀. Selective quoting to make it look like a different point. Saying I pushed the perception as true having just told you it’s not actually true.
I've spoken to someone this evening who simultaneously agrees with Labour (that teachers and other public sector workers should jump the queue ahead of five of the vulnerable categories) and the WHO (that the government should stop vaccinating after the vulnerable in order to distribute vaccines to the developing world).
The resolution of this apparent paradox is that they didn't know the detail of the Labour policy, and merely agreed with the sentiment that teachers needed to be vaccinated "earlier than 40 year old IT consultants".
Perhaps Labour knew what they were doing with that policy after all, since we all on here overestimate the extent to which people generally are aware of the detail. Opposing early vaccination of teachers is almost akin to kicking puppies. Why would anyone do that?
Labour's policy (copyright Angela Rayner) is clear. Everyone is a priority case. This includes teachers. No-one is pushed back in the queue by anyone being a priority case (eg teachers) because everyone is a priority case.
An easy win for opposition politics.
Labour's proposal is basically what Israel has done. It might be wrong or right but more likely there is not a lot in it and people, even on this very pb, are just piling in on one side or other depending which colour rosette they wore last December.
Being bored silly of covid and brexit, and having always been bored silly of Scottish independence which seems to have had a surge on here over the last week, my absolute favourite story at the moment is Gamestop. On more left-wing corners of the internet there's a 'Hahaha look at these rich wall street traders losing money and these little people winning' thing going on. But will any fund on Wall street or in the City really lose much if they just cover themselves until the price returns to something sensible? Could any of them actually lose more than would just come out in the wash at the end of the year? And as for the little people, I know that if they get out at the right time they could make / have made a fortune, but I imagine a lot are going to lose their entire 4 or 5 figure savings, in order that some investment fund shaves 0.01% off their profit margin. Or is there are chance a fund's losses could be big?
And could someone explain to me how if you have to borrow stock in order to short It, it's possible for the total amount shorted to be 140% of stock, as I've seen mentioned somewhere.
Forgive me if there are any major misunderstandings in my post, it isn't my area!
I think the point is that the way that shorting works, is that it is independent of actual physical stock. That is the problem. When shorting you assume that you will be able to buy the stock at a future date (at a profit or as a stop loss). However if the numbers shorting exceed supply then it becomes a massive sellers market and the shorters are totally screwed.
You might recall this happened in 2008 when Porsche briefly became the most valuable company in the world. Large numbers of hedge funds shorted the stock on the back of a perceived crisis in the car industry, only to discover that 80% of the stock was held by a local government in Germany. Who weren't interested in selling.
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 should direct their ire at the EU. The UK has done far more proportionally speaking.
You mean when we go into the detail of the rights and wrongs of it? Whilst we are there we may even learn Marie Antoinette never actually said let them eat cake.
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
Gosh you do know there is a difference between having a surplus and not enough....the uk does not have enough vaccine , we aren't hoarding it dipshit
That’s rather rude. Considering I totally agree with you what the truth is. And considering you are the one who completely missed an obvious point.
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
Your meaning was obvious and you have always been one of the whiners who never gave britain credit for our help with covax but instead moaned we aren't doing enough to help rich europeans who can afford to help themselves but instead prefer to try and cheapskate....take your scrofulous self to coventry
You just have your head up high because you know what the truth is. Rather ignorant to how important perception actually is.
That’s the point I’m making. And it’s true isn’t it?
Because you are laying into me, who agrees with you. But look at what the WHO are saying who neither of us agree with.
We can’t just put our chin in the air, we have to manage perceptions. And that means, as I have been saying for days, doing something. I’m not saying it has to be a lot. But it has to be something.
The reply’s I get is**** *** to Coventry. You want to give all our good work away like Francis of Assisi. You have no intention of praising the U.K. government.
I’m just saying we need to do something to manage this, what could be damaging, long lasting perception.
I have not said a bad word about the uk government in regard to vaccines. Others are reading your post the same way as I am as a "We should send some of our vaccines to europe"
Being bored silly of covid and brexit, and having always been bored silly of Scottish independence which seems to have had a surge on here over the last week, my absolute favourite story at the moment is Gamestop. On more left-wing corners of the internet there's a 'Hahaha look at these rich wall street traders losing money and these little people winning' thing going on. But will any fund on Wall street or in the City really lose much if they just cover themselves until the price returns to something sensible? Could any of them actually lose more than would just come out in the wash at the end of the year? And as for the little people, I know that if they get out at the right time they could make / have made a fortune, but I imagine a lot are going to lose their entire 4 or 5 figure savings, in order that some investment fund shaves 0.01% off their profit margin. Or is there are chance a fund's losses could be big?
And could someone explain to me how if you have to borrow stock in order to short It, it's possible for the total amount shorted to be 140% of stock, as I've seen mentioned somewhere.
Forgive me if there are any major misunderstandings in my post, it isn't my area!
As to shorting 140% of the stock - the answer is naked shorting.
I've spoken to someone this evening who simultaneously agrees with Labour (that teachers and other public sector workers should jump the queue ahead of five of the vulnerable categories) and the WHO (that the government should stop vaccinating after the vulnerable in order to distribute vaccines to the developing world).
The resolution of this apparent paradox is that they didn't know the detail of the Labour policy, and merely agreed with the sentiment that teachers needed to be vaccinated "earlier than 40 year old IT consultants".
Perhaps Labour knew what they were doing with that policy after all, since we all on here overestimate the extent to which people generally are aware of the detail. Opposing early vaccination of teachers is almost akin to kicking puppies. Why would anyone do that?
Labour's policy (copyright Angela Rayner) is clear. Everyone is a priority case. This includes teachers. No-one is pushed back in the queue by anyone being a priority case (eg teachers) because everyone is a priority case.
An easy win for opposition politics.
Labour's proposal is basically what Israel has done. It might be wrong or right but more likely there is not a lot in it and people, even on this very pb, are just piling in on one side or other depending which colour rosette they wore last December.
It's a dumb proposal because their primary criticism of the government is that they are not listening to the experts.
Is it a surprise how rapidly the case numbers (and the 7-day average) are falling, when we combine supposedly much more transmissible variant with not-quite-as-tight-or-well-observed-lockdown as March?
Being bored silly of covid and brexit, and having always been bored silly of Scottish independence which seems to have had a surge on here over the last week, my absolute favourite story at the moment is Gamestop. On more left-wing corners of the internet there's a 'Hahaha look at these rich wall street traders losing money and these little people winning' thing going on. But will any fund on Wall street or in the City really lose much if they just cover themselves until the price returns to something sensible? Could any of them actually lose more than would just come out in the wash at the end of the year? And as for the little people, I know that if they get out at the right time they could make / have made a fortune, but I imagine a lot are going to lose their entire 4 or 5 figure savings, in order that some investment fund shaves 0.01% off their profit margin. Or is there are chance a fund's losses could be big?
And could someone explain to me how if you have to borrow stock in order to short It, it's possible for the total amount shorted to be 140% of stock, as I've seen mentioned somewhere.
Forgive me if there are any major misunderstandings in my post, it isn't my area!
To try and answer your 2 questions:
The reason they may not be able to just wait is that they will be paying interest, possibly very high interest, on the borrowed shares. The longer this goes on the more interest they will have to pay.
And the reason that the total amount shorted can be 140% of stock is because the same stock can be shorted more than once at the same time. So you borrow the stock, sell it at a price expecting it to drop in value so you can buy it back. Meanwhile the person you sold it to lends it again to another shorter who resells it. So now it has to be bought back twice and 'unborrowed' twice. On the same stock.
It looks to me like a mini version of the chaos in the US
The centre sends out vaccines. The supply chain is long and winding. Various localities have various policies on holding back jabs for seconds etc. The front end is poorly resourced.
The result - lots of stock up and down the line, and the logistics system starts to create "waves" of stock, moving around. Which makes things worse.
What you need is experts in logistics in control of the whole chain.
Careful - you can't say the centre "sends" out vaccines without certain people on here getting very triggered....!
Von der Leyen’s spokesman, Eric Mamer, said it’s an institutional reality that all decisions go through the president’s cabinet and the college of commissioners. No decisions are taken without college consensus, he added...
While the crucial sections on Northern Ireland were a late addition to the document, all relevant senior officials had been involved and had sight of the plan before it went live. Final signoff was the responsibility of von der Leyen’s office
So an oversight such as previously described is impossible, and they were lying? I still don't think any of them will be sacked because the Member states agree with the anger at AZ, just not this response, but this seems explosive - how can they escape at least some censure?
Astra triggered the crisis just over a week ago when it revealed it was cutting back planned vaccine supply to the EU by a reported 60% to 31 million doses following disruption at a plant in Belgium. At the same time, deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program race ahead of the continent.
'Mostly' doing some lifting here.
Some EU officials suspect that Astra was responsible for a portion of those shipments and should have kept back doses for European buyers. But they don’t have the evidence to prove it because the data aren’t broken down by manufacture
So why the f*ck did they make such claims so boldly if it cannot be proven?
And as expected, those pushing for the ridiculous raising of stakes?
By Tuesday evening, pressure began to mount from Germany, first, and then France, for a more stringent approach.
What is interesting is the claim that "deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations" - I think this must be briefing from the EU, by people who are unaware that, in fact the UK deliveries have been far below expectations.
I've spoken to someone this evening who simultaneously agrees with Labour (that teachers and other public sector workers should jump the queue ahead of five of the vulnerable categories) and the WHO (that the government should stop vaccinating after the vulnerable in order to distribute vaccines to the developing world).
The resolution of this apparent paradox is that they didn't know the detail of the Labour policy, and merely agreed with the sentiment that teachers needed to be vaccinated "earlier than 40 year old IT consultants".
Perhaps Labour knew what they were doing with that policy after all, since we all on here overestimate the extent to which people generally are aware of the detail. Opposing early vaccination of teachers is almost akin to kicking puppies. Why would anyone do that?
Labour's policy (copyright Angela Rayner) is clear. Everyone is a priority case. This includes teachers. No-one is pushed back in the queue by anyone being a priority case (eg teachers) because everyone is a priority case.
An easy win for opposition politics.
Labour's proposal is basically what Israel has done. It might be wrong or right but more likely there is not a lot in it and people, even on this very pb, are just piling in on one side or other depending which colour rosette they wore last December.
You mean, like the person who wrote "MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE IF MINISTERS RESPOND TO POPULIST CAMPAIGNS LIKE THIS" as a header a few threads back.
Comments
But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?
1. We must hope that we don't get the infamous 8% figure, or anywhere close. I know there's been some dispute on the site today as to how much of a role vaccination has or hasn't played in the especially steep drop off in cases seen in our oldest citizens, but early indications appear encouraging to me
2. Assuming that AZ is good enough to pass muster, it will be fascinating to see how long it takes some of these more sceptical national authorities to perform U-turns, if they do at all
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2041
Today, the European Commission is taking the first steps towards building the European Health Union announced by President von der Leyen in her State of the Union address. The Commission is putting forward a set of proposals to strengthen the EU's health security framework, and to reinforce the crisis preparedness and response role of key EU agencies
In fairness I don't actually know the extent of what is proposed.
https://twitter.com/EuRollout/status/1354856137791860739
Also EU: GIVE US ALL YOUR VACCINE NOW NOW NOW!
cf denmark for one and the agreement with blair to reform cap in return for us giving up some of the rebate for a second....anyone who trusts a single word the eu says should come to my house as I have a fine selection of bridges to sell
I know you are asking them to send it to a good cause but that nuance will be lost in the outrage about profiteering Brits
The EU: "We've authorised 3 vaccines and are reserving one of them exclusively for our U55s"...
https://twitter.com/kevverage/status/1355614189096726544?s=20
Thought not.....
Ditto: Britain cannot vaccinate children because it was not tested on the young.
And you could have similar contrasting claims around, say, different ethnic groups, or variants of the virus, or finger-in-the-air second dose schedules.
At what point (if any) do we start saying we don't want another manufacturer involved, or do we instead split them into two groups to have basically some companies doing the current mass vaccine production and some companies working on the next versions for the next variant, etc.?
https://twitter.com/EuRollout/status/1355122966997200901
Not tested in elderly for ethical reasons as they are at most risk if the trials went badly.
Not tested in kids as they are generally very low symptoms so not the priority.
So not jabbing kids doesnt cause significant harm, not jabbing the elderly does.
FWIW I think they should have tested more on the elderly anyway as other manufacturers did, but the comparison is not quite the same.
Its not been tested on children. It could have side effects we don't know about.
Ultimately they're ours and we should use them in a way that benefits the developing world the most. If Europe doesn't want to do that, other countries need to step up, and that includes us with more money and our vaccine surplus.
I think if they refused to take them because it would cost €3.75bn in COVAX funding then it would literally make them look completely selfish and idiotic to the whole world and the people of Europe.
Also, a fair price is what someone is willing to pay for something. I think, faced with the alternative (35m people not getting vaccinated) €3.75bn to purchase 1-1.5bn vaccines for the world's poor is a very good deal.
https://twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1355537381420621824?s=20
And she wrote a story just for you.
http://aln2.albumlinernotes.com/Moondance.html
Slackers.
No children.
Its been tested but has a very wide confidence interval, that's an entirely different matter to being untested.
I think it's been accepted that regulators might make different decisions due to the level of data available relating to over 65s, but that is not the same as having no clue whether it has a reasonable chance of being effective, they have reason to think it would be but not the level of data they'd like. I've not previously seen anyone bring up the issue of vaccinating children so I just assumed you have to be more careful with kids as you cannot assume they need the same level as with adults.
So I'm not sure if the comparison is really apposite.
Or, to put it another way, imagine Brexit had never happened, we were part of this mess as a result, and then the Commission proposed giving Ursula and Stella powers of direction over the NHS? One ventures to suggest that it might not go down too well?
https://twitter.com/TCG_CrisisRisks/status/1355031845650329600
Though you're right on the latter part, with the J&J vaccine it might make sense to ask that it is adjusted to beat the Brazil and SA mutations or whatever else has popped up over the summer so it's ready to go before Xmas.
There is no doubt in my mind the strategy should be to use the vaccines on the elderly based on the data we do have, but equally it has not been tested as we would do if this wasnt an emergency situation.
The resolution of this apparent paradox is that they didn't know the detail of the Labour policy, and merely agreed with the sentiment that teachers needed to be vaccinated "earlier than 40 year old IT consultants".
Perhaps Labour knew what they were doing with that policy after all, since we all on here overestimate the extent to which people generally are aware of the detail. Opposing early vaccination of teachers is almost akin to kicking puppies. Why would anyone do that?
We are no more hoarding than Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.
So just to confirm you are not dip**** explain to everyone what is the important point I am trying to get you to realise.
The manufacturers say they do believe it is effective on over 65s and the UK have taken them at their word. The Germans have decided to ignore the Manufacturers advice. We are now starting to see the results of that with a drop in incidence amongst the elderly which looks to be due to the vaccine. There is no evidence that it is actually unsafe for over 65s to take it.
The manufacturers of all the vaccines have also said they are not sure of the safety implications of giving the vaccines to children and so have recommended it not be given. Again the UK have followed the advice of the manufacturers.
Conflating the two is the sort of thing the anti-vaxxers do. Are you one of them?
The centre sends out vaccines. The supply chain is long and winding. Various localities have various policies on holding back jabs for seconds etc. The front end is poorly resourced.
The result - lots of stock up and down the line, and the logistics system starts to create "waves" of stock, moving around. Which makes things worse.
What you need is experts in logistics in control of the whole chain.
Even a 60% efficacy (down from 70%) vaccine is still good as long as it's safe but for under 18s we'd have no idea that is safe.
Completely different things you're conflating here.
"But the eyes will be on those whose store house has a mountain of grain, whilst everyone else is starving. That’s only natural and to be expected?"
https://twitter.com/funder/status/1355351179958620160?s=20
If GME is above $395 at close on 19 February then I will have lost money. If it is below, I make it.
Safety tests - no under 18s for most vaccines
Safety tests - over 65s included for all vaccines.
Efficacy tests - no under 18s for most vaccines
Efficacy tests - some over 65s included for all vaccines. But in a number of cases, not a big enough group to tighten the error bars to find a definitive number.
At the same time, deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program race ahead of the continent.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-30/faced-with-a-vaccine-emergency-the-eu-made-an-enemy-of-everyone
We were supposed have had 30 million doses by September, then they said 4 million by December no problemo, we got ~2 million at the start of January. Why do journalists write this kind of bollocks that we can easily check.
Astra triggered the crisis just over a week ago when it revealed it was cutting back planned vaccine supply to the EU by a reported 60% to 31 million doses following disruption at a plant in Belgium. At the same time, deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program race ahead of the continent.
And could someone explain to me how if you have to borrow stock in order to short It, it's possible for the total amount shorted to be 140% of stock, as I've seen mentioned somewhere.
Forgive me if there are any major misunderstandings in my post, it isn't my area!
An easy win for opposition politics.
That’s the point I’m making. And it’s true isn’t it?
Because you are laying into me, who agrees with you. But look at what the WHO are saying who neither of us agree with.
We can’t just put our chin in the air, we have to manage perceptions. And that means, as I have been saying for days, doing something. I’m not saying it has to be a lot. But it has to be something.
The reply’s I get is**** *** to Coventry. You want to give all our good work away like Francis of Assisi. You have no intention of praising the U.K. government.
I’m just saying we need to do something to manage this, what could be damaging, long lasting perception.
While the crucial sections on Northern Ireland were a late addition to the document, all relevant senior officials had been involved and had sight of the plan before it went live. Final signoff was the responsibility of von der Leyen’s office
So an oversight such as previously described is impossible, and they were lying? I still don't think any of them will be sacked because the Member states agree with the anger at AZ, just not this response, but this seems explosive - how can they escape at least some censure?
Astra triggered the crisis just over a week ago when it revealed it was cutting back planned vaccine supply to the EU by a reported 60% to 31 million doses following disruption at a plant in Belgium. At the same time, deliveries in the U.K. have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program race ahead of the continent.
'Mostly' doing some lifting here.
Some EU officials suspect that Astra was responsible for a portion of those shipments and should have kept back doses for European buyers. But they don’t have the evidence to prove it because the data aren’t broken down by manufacture
So why the f*ck did they make such claims so boldly if it cannot be proven?
And as expected, those pushing for the ridiculous raising of stakes?
By Tuesday evening, pressure began to mount from Germany, first, and then France, for a more stringent approach.
You might recall this happened in 2008 when Porsche briefly became the most valuable company in the world. Large numbers of hedge funds shorted the stock on the back of a perceived crisis in the car industry, only to discover that 80% of the stock was held by a local government in Germany. Who weren't interested in selling.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nakedshorting.asp
As to how much they could lose - well it depends on how stupid/exuberant the traders were.
Is it a surprise how rapidly the case numbers (and the 7-day average) are falling, when we combine supposedly much more transmissible variant with not-quite-as-tight-or-well-observed-lockdown as March?
https://twitter.com/BBCHelena/status/1355627347576315909?s=20
The reason they may not be able to just wait is that they will be paying interest, possibly very high interest, on the borrowed shares. The longer this goes on the more interest they will have to pay.
And the reason that the total amount shorted can be 140% of stock is because the same stock can be shorted more than once at the same time. So you borrow the stock, sell it at a price expecting it to drop in value so you can buy it back. Meanwhile the person you sold it to lends it again to another shorter who resells it. So now it has to be bought back twice and 'unborrowed' twice. On the same stock.
The famous Tory voter and Johnson ultra ... OGH.