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The extraordinary battle the AstraZeneca vaccine has in being accepted across Europe – politicalbett
The extraordinary battle the AstraZeneca vaccine has in being accepted across Europe – politicalbetting.com
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“That game sucks! I don’t want to play.”
“Well you can stay a prisoner if you want. But I’ll still make some of you play the game every day.
Or.... well I must be feeling generous today. If you don’t like that, I suppose I could give you this ticket. It gets you a place in the queue to stand over there and have that nice English-Swedish guard pinch you on the arm instead. When we’ve pinched every prisoner in the arm, you can all go”.
“Hmmm... your guards are quite strong. Has anyone ever died from him pinching them?”.
“No”.
“Or needed hospital?”
“No”.
“Does it hurt?”
“Maybe a bit. Stay in bed a day or two if so. Fill in the blanks in your Netflix education”.
“Can’t I just transfer to another prison instead?”
“No. Every prison is now playing this game”.
“And if I let you pinch me in the arm, I won’t have to stand in front of the machine gun again?”
“No. Well not this one and not today”.
“Meh. Take me to the wall please.”
https://twitter.com/ballouxfrancois/status/1374230777601388546?s=21
https://twitter.com/reutersuk/status/1374230700791042051?s=21
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
There is a campaign against AZ. And it is an orchestrated one.
I would not rush to judgment, thought. This could be a minor issue - and the real word data outside of the trials, from millions rather than tens of thousands, suggests the vaccine is effective - but it doesn’t help things.
Are those governments we presumed were playing vaccine nationalism against one with Oxford in title in fact dumb pawns in the hands of Big Pharma?
Is it a form of Gaslighting?
It’s not an easy process, and in normal times such trials and their reporting happen over a much longer period of time, under far less pressure.
AZN have had a tough few days - their director of oncology just died tragically, reportedly of CJD.
The Sinovac vaccine is reportedly selling for a higher price than either. Sputnik will no doubt be a profitable exercise, too.
To give some context, I think AZN’s total revenues last year were around $25bn.
It could have happened all on its own, and a few nudges (of the kind we’ve seen in US political campaigns from foreign actors) would be all that was needed.
https://twitter.com/thelonevirologi/status/1374126375628636160
Well done to everyone involved, and sad to see that no good deed goes unpunished as far as AZ are concerned.
Only Israel and UAE (pop. 10m each) are ahead of the UK in the rollout, bar a few tiny states and enclaves.
It soon became clear that the ‘optimistic’ assumptions in the models were rather pessimistic. The lockdown worked better than predicted and both the uptake and efficacy of the vaccine exceeded expectations. So far, there is no sign of opening schools leading to a rise in infections. When a peer-reviewed version of the Warwick model was published last week, it forecast very few deaths if lockdown was eased in April so long as the vaccines are at least 60% effective. Like the other models, it made the dubious assumption that neither warmer weather nor vaccinations would reduce levels of transmission, but even so, there seems to be no realistic prospect of the NHS being overwhelmed – and that, let us never forget, is the sole justification for lockdown.
Although Boris Johnson promised to base policy on data rather than dates, SAGE turned this into a one-way ratchet by concocting a rule that says it takes four weeks to evaluate the data and another week to act upon it. This concept was notable by its absence last year, when restrictions were being introduced on an almost weekly basis and it seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of keeping the roadmap to a snail’s pace.
https://capx.co/the-data-is-clear-the-government-must-move-the-lockdown-roadmap-forward/
Worth a read, whether you're part of the cautious tendency or not. I am, and it's probably a good idea for us to be regularly reminded just how very destructive lockdown itself is.
Selling its vaccine at cost price to developing countries - in perpetuity no less - was always going to be seen as a declaration of war by the rest of Big Pharma. The very idea of "doing our bit to help out in a global pandemic" runs entirely counter to the notion that the industry will milk the ailments of mankind, whatever, wherever. I mean, where does it stop? It wont do...won't do at all.
The alternative view is that AZ knew exactly what it was doing - and was trying to drive a stake through the heart of competitors in Big Pharma with its faux "benevolence".
“We are now basically in a new pandemic. The British mutation has become dominant,” Merkel told a news conference.
“Fundamentally, we face a new virus of the same kind but with very different characteristics. More deadly, more infectious, and infectious for longer.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/reutersComService_2_MOLT/idUSKBN2BF05L
I posted a couple of weeks or so ago that there was something going on under the (political) surface. That something was poisoning AstraZeneca's PR well, and that it seemed nothing whatsoever to do with the efficacy or otherwise of the vaccine.
I don't think it's that it's a ganging up against UK either.
Mr. Pioneers, no, but they certainly got the ball rolling.
King Cole, indeed. We're lucky there are millions (tens of millions?) of real world examples in the UK to counteract some of the more outlandish claims of the AZN vaccine infecting people with the T-virus.
Not saying this is what’s happening for sure, but Putin and Xi both run their countries first and foremost on the basis that they’re engaged in cold wars to the death with the West. And most actors in the West don’t realise it. It’s hard to think of anything in the post war period that has done more damage economically, socially and diplomatically to the Western alliance than covid itself and the vaccine procurement crisis.
Genius if so. Steal the information, produce a vaccine derived almost entirely from it, then force other people to run a misinformation campaign to discredit the cheaper original so you can sell your knock off to them at inflated prices.
Declaration of interest, I've got an armful of AZ and no side-effects.
But as we’ve seen in other contexts, it only takes a relatively small effort to reap outsize results.
The West needs to find some way to inoculate itself against this kind of thing.
Either way, when I get an invite to have the thing I'll do so with a smile...
At the moment all the Covid mutations will eventually hit the rest of the world - once you fail to stop the initial cases getting out into the wild it is inevitable
Sadly, the sort of online warfare engaged in by Russia and China costs almost nothing, compared to the value placed on the effect of their disinformation campaigns in the Western world.
And they don’t even seem to know now what it is that they want.
https://www.politico.eu/article/threats-but-few-details-as-european-commission-demands-reciprocity-in-vaccine-exports/
The main accusation against the EU has always been "unelected bureaucrats dictating to member states" - on this very forum this last week writ large. And yet we have members states doing the exact opposite to each other in response to the virus and the vaccine.
It isn't the EU driving this. Its Macron. Its Merkel. Its Dragi - with their internal domestic political shenanigans driving increasingly daft reactions from VDL. And not the other way round as insisted by EU foamers.
The UK not monetising discoveries that come from our universities seems a tale as old as time.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56490673
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56483445
This might explain some of the confused data about seasonal effects: whether infection was reduced in winter.
I think the future is the RNA viruses, particularly for autumn boosters to cover South African and Brazil strains.
The UK Government was mercilessly pilloried last year for ignoring what was going on in Italy and elsewhere, and not making use of the "crucial few weeks" that we had for being a bit further from China and an island. Well most of Europe has done exactly the same thing now - in reverse. Except they've had a bit more than weeks, and far more reason to expect what was coming.
We got the Vaccine Right. We got the Brexit deal wrong. They aren't mutually exclusive.
https://twitter.com/adampayne26/status/1373974501998915585?s=19
Pfizer, the major contributor to "EU exports" to the world and elsewhere is set up with global manufacturing sites to satisfy global supply chains. AZ in the UK could fill a small fraction of the EU shortfall. Exports from Pfizer to the UK are only a fraction of their overall production.
10m doses exported to the UK is the equivalent of 80-90m doses to the EU. And yet the EU seems to think the the EU and UK should be equal contributors in terms of vaccine supplies. Whereas even if "reciprocity" were a thing, we wouldn't "owe" the EU more than about 1-2m doses.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1374139085061820416?s=19
And that was their condition for licensing it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55043551
Sarah Gilbert: "We're a university and we're not in this to make money."
Note that this used to be the perfectly accepted view in European universities.
When Wilhelm Rontgen discovered X-rays -- with their immediate medical benefits -- he did not patent the discovery.
He made them freely available to all.
Sarah Gilbert (and even AZ) are heroes for our time.
The trashing of their work by the EU, Ursula von der Leyen and European pols like Macron is the crushing of beauty and nobility by ugliness and mean-spiritedness.
American companies and American universities symbiotically make a profit in making new discoveries and monetising them.
Google began life as a project at Stanford making Stanford hundreds of millions of dollars as a result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCZWcnQwJtk
University Patent Attorney: Just need you to review and sign this document acknowledging that you understand the university will own 75% of the patent.
Howard: 75%?
Sheldon: That's outrageous. This is our idea based on our research. How can you possibly justify owning a majority share?
University Patent Attorney: It's university policy.
Sheldon: Well, I know when I'm beat.
Leonard: Hold on, hold on. So the three of us do all the work and only end up with 25%?
University Patent Attorney: Dr. Hofstadter, this university has been paying your salaries for over ten years. Did you think we do that out of the goodness of our hearts?
Leonard: Well, until you just said that mean thing, kinda.
Still not sure how banning exports gets the EU more Pfizer doses. They could only do that via actual appropriation.
Scepticism of vaccines is such in some EU countries that is possible they already couldn't reach UK vaccination rates. (although what happened to the argument that the UK being ahead was an illusion based on our dosing strategy...?)
But it does make the complaints of various European governments about 'fairness' rankle somewhat.
And given the billion or so doses that India will be producing, our effective contribution to the Covax effort ought to be measured in the billions, rather than the £500m or so cash that we're contributing.
Oxford were in a rather fortunate position to be working on a solution for SARS that neatly transferred over to Covid19 but its noteworthy that all other vaccines came from Pharma, not from Universities. We should be grateful for Pharma. No other universities found a solution but Pharma found many, without the profit motive there would have not been the inventions in the first place.
Oxford are selling their vaccine for less than a Caramel Latte, for less than a Big Mac. Pfizer are selling theirs less than a steak can cost at a restaurant - not hundreds or thousands of dollars per dose. If Astrazeneca put theirs at the cost of a Big Mac meal it would not be "holding the world to ransom", but it would be making a very justified reward on helping to save the world that it could use to fund future research, future discoveries in a virtuous circle which is why American universities outclass European ones for research.
The Treasury ultimately turned down those attempts, which at one point involved Cameron personally texting chancellor Rishi Sunak...
https://www.ft.com/content/84ca5ada-f916-47f0-b386-fd4d5790a0d1 (not paywalled)
Conservatives blocking corruption inquiries: unprecedented, no doubt. Greensill must be miffed. What's the point of paying an ex-prime minister if he can't even get money from an old school-chum?
Corruption is an outcome where you get the outcome, even though the merits don't stack up. Usually for an obvious reason - somebody gets rich(er).
The bizarre element of this case is why anybody would think Cameron could negotiate for your desired outcome, given how he flunked Negotiating 1.01 with the EU.
might explain in part the insane flailing out of the EU
Not exactly catching up are they
Why were AZ chosen over GSK by the VTF?