Isn't the UKs tougher line on foreign holidays, despite being in a better situation this year than last, at least partly part of our counter response to the EU on vaccines.
The possibility of variants is legitimate cover, but nothing that has happened with variants so far suggests foreign travel needs to remain impossible longer term - it would be precautionary.
Don't sort yourselves out, pfffft, UK holiday spend in the EU gone.
... former Tory prime minister Cameron had personally lobbied senior figures in the Treasury and Downing Street to try to help it secure greater access to state-backed Covid-19 loan schemes.
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?
Whats the point in Tory MPs trying to block an investigation? 1. The story is already out there 2. The Tories are already openly corrupt and nobody cares, so why try to hide this?
AZ does seem a little naive, paddling in the piranha pool as it 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".
Or neither, given that it was a condition of the Oxford license that it be provided at cost.
Has any other vaccine player had that requirement placed upon it?
No, because they weren't developed by Oxford University.
The UK not monetising discoveries that come from our universities seems a tale as old as time.
I assume that Big Pharma thinks AZ should have told the Govt. to bugger off with the terms of their licence to produce at cost. Sets a terrible - and for them, terrifying - precedent.
Was it a Govt. licence condition; I though (see above) that it was Oxford Uni's?
Indeed. Had it been an American University that had developed it, then the University would have taken a share in the profits. Billions of profits for the University that had discovered it.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
Isn't that a good thing, rather than trying to make money, Oxford was more interested in saving lives.
They could and should have done both.
Why? So Pharma Companies can hold the world to ransom which is what the "attack AZ vaccine" is all about. If the AZ vaccine was more expensive that the Pfizer one then none of this anti AZ stuff would be happening. The fact that it is 10 times as cheap makes it a threat.
Pharma doesn't hold the world to ransom, Pharma develops the solutions for the world's crises.
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.
Just about every major pharma innovation has its roots in universities as that's where the blue sky research is done and the researchers come from. BioNtech - which developed the Pfizer vaccine - works very closely with several German universities, for example, and its founder Özlem Türeci is a lecturer at the University of Mainz.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
O/t but I've just been looking at my diary for 21-23 March last year. It's full of comments about neighbours shopping for us, and the need to find somewhere that would deliver wine! Also quite a lot about how the u3a was going to manage and how to operate Zoom.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Indeed. Had it been an American University that had developed it, then the University would have taken a share in the profits. Billions of profits for the University that had discovered it.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
I think the scientists involved in developing the vaccine thought that it should be available at cost.
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.
Indeed that's the difference between European and American universities - and a reason the biggest companies of our time are Americans. Also a reason why the best universities in the globe are mainly American ones too, there are no EU universities at all in the Top 50 in most rankings.
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.
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.
UK universities are very interested in monetising their research. The cuddly view of ivory towers and not-in-touch academics is a bit out of date, at least for the sciences.
Absolutely. I think that the special circumstances of the pandemic led to what was, in hindsight, a less than optimal decision. I think that one of the reasons AZN agreed to the Oxford terms was that they didn't really have a vaccine program of their own. ATHough equally, I think they deserve a great deal of credit for stepping up at a time of national emergency.
An established player like GSK might have made fewer missteps, of course. But they had their own vaccine in development, and were unlikely to agree to produce a cut price competitor.
You have to hand it to the evil EU. I had no idea that they ran the US government as well.
Could it be the Russian government is running both?
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.
Interesting point. Both the Russians and the Chinese have a vested interested in discrediting the AZ/Oxford vaccine. Whoever delivers vaccine not only makes money but also has influence. The low cost AZ vaccine threatens this which may account for the online trolling.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Everyone jabbed in an EU country will also be given their very own unicorn. Because that is the world the EU wants its citizens to live in.
Give them a competent government. Unicorns are less rare -
Unicorns are just rhinos with a good PR company....
I met a couple of baby rhino in Nepal - orphaned by poachers. The were living on a Ghurka base in the Chitwan nature reserve. Just wandering about....
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
Indeed. Had it been an American University that had developed it, then the University would have taken a share in the profits. Billions of profits for the University that had discovered it.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
I think the scientists involved in developing the vaccine thought that it should be available at cost.
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.
Indeed that's the difference between European and American universities - and a reason the biggest companies of our time are Americans. Also a reason why the best universities in the globe are mainly American ones too, there are no EU universities at all in the Top 50 in most rankings.
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.
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.
UK universities are very interested in monetising their research. The cuddly view of ivory towers and not-in-touch academics is a bit out of date, at least for the sciences.
Absolutely. I think that the special circumstances of the pandemic led to what was, in hindsight, a less than optimal decision. I think that one of the reasons AZN agreed to the Oxford terms was that they didn't really have a vaccine program of their own. ATHough equally, I think they deserve a great deal of credit for stepping up at a time of national emergency.
An established player like GSK might have made fewer missteps, of course. But they had their own vaccine in development, and were unlikely to agree to produce a cut price competitor.
I think that's right. AZN are doing this essentially at cost, but those costs are very helpful to AZN. They get to build new facilities, gain expertise in vaccine production etc etc. At the end of this, they won't have the eye watering Covid profits of some of the competitors, but they'll have funded, with costs covered, a whole mostly new area of their business.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
How lovely
but it still doesnt distract from the reality that the border was weaponised and the sleeping dogs kicked. Enda Kenny made the point several times that a solution was possible but his successors decided to push it to the wire as aprt of the EU negotiations. They screwed up and will run away from the mess they made leaving everyone else to suffer.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Sorry to remove the drama, but had the UK still been part of the EU we would almost certainly have done our own thing with respect to procurement of vaccines.
It is a great sadness that what is a international scientific triumph has been turned into nationalistic will waving.
Indeed. Had it been an American University that had developed it, then the University would have taken a share in the profits. Billions of profits for the University that had discovered it.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
I think the scientists involved in developing the vaccine thought that it should be available at cost.
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.
Indeed that's the difference between European and American universities - and a reason the biggest companies of our time are Americans. Also a reason why the best universities in the globe are mainly American ones too, there are no EU universities at all in the Top 50 in most rankings.
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.
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.
UK universities are very interested in monetising their research. The cuddly view of ivory towers and not-in-touch academics is a bit out of date, at least for the sciences.
Absolutely. I think that the special circumstances of the pandemic led to what was, in hindsight, a less than optimal decision. I think that one of the reasons AZN agreed to the Oxford terms was that they didn't really have a vaccine program of their own. ATHough equally, I think they deserve a great deal of credit for stepping up at a time of national emergency.
An established player like GSK might have made fewer missteps, of course. But they had their own vaccine in development, and were unlikely to agree to produce a cut price competitor.
I think that's right. AZN are doing this essentially at cost, but those costs are very helpful to AZN. They get to build new facilities, gain expertise in vaccine production etc etc. At the end of this, they won't have the eye watering Covid profits of some of the competitors, but they'll have funded, with costs covered, a whole mostly new area of their business.
I assume they may profit from booster shots. The initial 2 shots are just a loss-leader.
Everyone jabbed in an EU country will also be given their very own unicorn. Because that is the world the EU wants its citizens to live in.
Give them a competent government. Unicorns are less rare -
Unicorns are just rhinos with a good PR company....
I met a couple of baby rhino in Nepal - orphaned by poachers. The were living on a Ghurka base in the Chitwan nature reserve. Just wandering about....
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
Few years ago, on 'safari' in S. Africa, we came across a rhino with a calf. The ranger warned us to be very quiet; mother rhinos were liable to charge first and ask questions afterwards.
Everyone jabbed in an EU country will also be given their very own unicorn. Because that is the world the EU wants its citizens to live in.
Give them a competent government. Unicorns are less rare -
Unicorns are just rhinos with a good PR company....
I met a couple of baby rhino in Nepal - orphaned by poachers. The were living on a Ghurka base in the Chitwan nature reserve. Just wandering about....
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
Few years ago, on 'safari' in S. Africa, we came across a rhino with a calf. The ranger warned us to be very quiet; mother rhinos were liable to charge first and ask questions afterwards.
The Labour Party, and others, were arguing we should (even having left) sign up to the EU vaccination programme. Somewhat difficult to imagine us going our own separate way having just voted to be in the EU, and with a far more pro-EU Commons.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
It was oversold by Hancock and Johnson at the time but more importantly there's unlikely to have been less trusted salesmen in Europe than those two. It's not just for fun that advertisers spend a fortune doing analysis on their celebrity endorsers.
Everyone jabbed in an EU country will also be given their very own unicorn. Because that is the world the EU wants its citizens to live in.
Give them a competent government. Unicorns are less rare -
Unicorns are just rhinos with a good PR company....
I met a couple of baby rhino in Nepal - orphaned by poachers. The were living on a Ghurka base in the Chitwan nature reserve. Just wandering about....
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
Few years ago, on 'safari' in S. Africa, we came across a rhino with a calf. The ranger warned us to be very quiet; mother rhinos were liable to charge first and ask questions afterwards.
When we went into the reserve, we did so on elephant back. We stayed in a lodge just outside the reserve and crossed the river on the elephants each morning at dawn....
Apparently, the one animal the rhinos won't charge is an elephant. Also the tigers tend to behave around them.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
It does demonstrate that sometimes the one-size-fits-all and centralised approach that the EU favours doesn't work well. Now some will say we could have remained in the the EU and still done our own thing, but as far as I know every EU member joined the EU Vaccine Strategy. I think the idea of a Remain voting UK deciding to go its own way is unlikely. We'd be in the same boat as the other EU states, and moaning about why the US is going so much faster than we are in the EU.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
How lovely
but it still doesnt distract from the reality that the border was weaponised and the sleeping dogs kicked. Enda Kenny made the point several times that a solution was possible but his successors decided to push it to the wire as aprt of the EU negotiations. They screwed up and will run away from the mess they made leaving everyone else to suffer.
Lol - you say "weaponsed" as if it wasn't the fundamental intractable problem. There were three options: 1. A "techno" border in Ireland which we refused to wait for until it was invented 2. A full customs border in the Irish Sea 3. Stay aligned and remove the need for the border
What beggars belief is that we HAVE stayed aligned. Our hard-fought 3rd country status being paraded by Tory MPs as victory is juxtaposed with their fave Liz Truss going round the world signing continuity aligned to the EU precisely where we always have been deals.
We could fix the issues with Norniron by accepting that we continue to be precisely aligned with EU standards and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. That being the case we can do a standards and customs deal with the EU to remove all those barriers we threw up, and avoid being taken to court by the WTO for refusing to treat EU imports like ROW imports (which we have to as no facilities built or officers hired).
We could do this. But won't. Because fantasists like your good self need to keep battling the perfidious forrin menace despite your victory over them.
AZ does seem a little naive, paddling in the piranha pool as it 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".
Or neither, given that it was a condition of the Oxford license that it be provided at cost.
Has any other vaccine player had that requirement placed upon it?
No, because they weren't developed by Oxford University.
The UK not monetising discoveries that come from our universities seems a tale as old as time.
I assume that Big Pharma thinks AZ should have told the Govt. to bugger off with the terms of their licence to produce at cost. Sets a terrible - and for them, terrifying - precedent.
Was it a Govt. licence condition; I though (see above) that it was Oxford Uni's?
Indeed. Had it been an American University that had developed it, then the University would have taken a share in the profits. Billions of profits for the University that had discovered it.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
Isn't that a good thing, rather than trying to make money, Oxford was more interested in saving lives.
They could and should have done both.
Why? So Pharma Companies can hold the world to ransom which is what the "attack AZ vaccine" is all about. If the AZ vaccine was more expensive that the Pfizer one then none of this anti AZ stuff would be happening. The fact that it is 10 times as cheap makes it a threat.
Pharma doesn't hold the world to ransom, Pharma develops the solutions for the world's crises.
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.
I agree that the current system is probably the most viable, but there are plenty of problems. There are appealing alternatives, such as massive global cooperation to fund research into agreed global priorities, but that requires massive global cooperation. Bare commercial competition is probably more effective, for us. It does neglect two things, though: - many poor country diseases are simply not financially viable to develop vaccines/treatments for, instead fairly trivial but commercially big things like male pattern baldness are researched. - some countries/consumers get royally screwed on pricing - see price gouging from the likes of Shkreli. We're fortunate here to have national buying by the NHS and be big enough to more or less set our price in many cases (I know of several cases where the NHS has effectively walked away from negotiations for something that costs too much for its benefit to then be offered a better price). Pharma costs explain much of the huge disparity in healthcare costs between here and the US.
The pharma world is still pretty murky, too. Pre-registraiton of trials and outcomes has helped a lot and prevented unfavourable trials disappearing and cherry-picking of outcomes, but there are still differences in trial results depending on the funder. Not blatant fabrication, but there are a lot of decisions, not all clear cut that are within the scientists' control and may be influenced by funders, for example choice of dosing, comparators, substance used in control arm, adverse events recording, length of followup, even the study population and choice of exclusions. If you'd like examples, go on Google Scholar for statin trials - you'll find that which statin is best depends quite a lot on who did the trial and who funded it.
... former Tory prime minister Cameron had personally lobbied senior figures in the Treasury and Downing Street to try to help it secure greater access to state-backed Covid-19 loan schemes.
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?
Whats the point in Tory MPs trying to block an investigation? 1. The story is already out there 2. The Tories are already openly corrupt and nobody cares, so why try to hide this?
Your accusation that "the Tories" are "openly corrupt" is complete partisan bollox, and I can say that as a big critic of the current government. Incompetent, yes, corrupt? No. Also there have been plenty of examples of Labour and Lib Dem corruption, and many areas of grey with all parties. The SNP, of course, also has it's "nasty party" image now. Reality is that all parties have plenty of rotten apples, but it doesn't mean you can insult all people that are members in such a hypocritical way.
Everyone jabbed in an EU country will also be given their very own unicorn. Because that is the world the EU wants its citizens to live in.
Give them a competent government. Unicorns are less rare -
Unicorns are just rhinos with a good PR company....
I met a couple of baby rhino in Nepal - orphaned by poachers. The were living on a Ghurka base in the Chitwan nature reserve. Just wandering about....
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
Few years ago, on 'safari' in S. Africa, we came across a rhino with a calf. The ranger warned us to be very quiet; mother rhinos were liable to charge first and ask questions afterwards.
Bit like a lawyer, eh?
When I was buying a flat in London many years ago I had a friend who was a property lawyer. I asked him to act for me. Sure, he said, and this is Samantha (I forget the name) my assistant; she will be there for all your queries. So any issue, no matter how minor, resulted in an email exchange with Samantha. So helpful, so professional, so prompt with her email responses. Every time.
And then of course I got the bill. Emails charged per £XXX each flaming time.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
Everyone jabbed in an EU country will also be given their very own unicorn. Because that is the world the EU wants its citizens to live in.
Give them a competent government. Unicorns are less rare -
Unicorns are just rhinos with a good PR company....
I met a couple of baby rhino in Nepal - orphaned by poachers. The were living on a Ghurka base in the Chitwan nature reserve. Just wandering about....
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
Few years ago, on 'safari' in S. Africa, we came across a rhino with a calf. The ranger warned us to be very quiet; mother rhinos were liable to charge first and ask questions afterwards.
Bit like a lawyer, eh?
When I was buying a flat in London many years ago I had a friend who was a property lawyer. I asked him to act for me. Sure, he said, and this is Samantha (I forget the name) my assistant; she will be there for all your queries. So any issue, no matter how minor, resulted in an email exchange with Samantha. So helpful, so professional, so prompt with her email responses. Every time.
And then of course I got the bill. Emails charged per £XXX each flaming time.
AZ does seem a little naive, paddling in the piranha pool as it 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".
Or neither, given that it was a condition of the Oxford license that it be provided at cost.
Has any other vaccine player had that requirement placed upon it?
No, because they weren't developed by Oxford University.
The UK not monetising discoveries that come from our universities seems a tale as old as time.
I assume that Big Pharma thinks AZ should have told the Govt. to bugger off with the terms of their licence to produce at cost. Sets a terrible - and for them, terrifying - precedent.
Was it a Govt. licence condition; I though (see above) that it was Oxford Uni's?
Indeed. Had it been an American University that had developed it, then the University would have taken a share in the profits. Billions of profits for the University that had discovered it.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
Isn't that a good thing, rather than trying to make money, Oxford was more interested in saving lives.
They could and should have done both.
Why? So Pharma Companies can hold the world to ransom which is what the "attack AZ vaccine" is all about. If the AZ vaccine was more expensive that the Pfizer one then none of this anti AZ stuff would be happening. The fact that it is 10 times as cheap makes it a threat.
Pharma doesn't hold the world to ransom, Pharma develops the solutions for the world's crises.
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.
Just about every major pharma innovation has its roots in universities as that's where the blue sky research is done and the researchers come from. BioNtech - which developed the Pfizer vaccine - works very closely with several German universities, for example, and its founder Özlem Türeci is a lecturer at the University of Mainz.
While that's true, the gap between university research and approved drugs is a massive one, both in terms of time and resources. And note that a significant amount of that university research is funded out of the profits of earlier successes.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The issue would have been a very large faction in government and elsewhere that would have demanded we sign up to the European solution - to be collegiate. Consider how many did so in reality - to a deal that was, apparently designed to be unacceptable (donate money, get no say on selection or production, no guarantees on receipt of vaccines).
Shades of Beal, Sombrero Island and the Foreign Office etc.....
Everyone jabbed in an EU country will also be given their very own unicorn. Because that is the world the EU wants its citizens to live in.
Give them a competent government. Unicorns are less rare -
Unicorns are just rhinos with a good PR company....
I met a couple of baby rhino in Nepal - orphaned by poachers. The were living on a Ghurka base in the Chitwan nature reserve. Just wandering about....
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
Few years ago, on 'safari' in S. Africa, we came across a rhino with a calf. The ranger warned us to be very quiet; mother rhinos were liable to charge first and ask questions afterwards.
Bit like a lawyer, eh?
When I was buying a flat in London many years ago I had a friend who was a property lawyer. I asked him to act for me. Sure, he said, and this is Samantha (I forget the name) my assistant; she will be there for all your queries. So any issue, no matter how minor, resulted in an email exchange with Samantha. So helpful, so professional, so prompt with her email responses. Every time.
And then of course I got the bill. Emails charged per £XXX each flaming time.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
... former Tory prime minister Cameron had personally lobbied senior figures in the Treasury and Downing Street to try to help it secure greater access to state-backed Covid-19 loan schemes.
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?
Whats the point in Tory MPs trying to block an investigation? 1. The story is already out there 2. The Tories are already openly corrupt and nobody cares, so why try to hide this?
Your accusation that "the Tories" are "openly corrupt" is complete partisan bollox, and I can say that as a big critic of the current government. Incompetent, yes, corrupt? No. Also there have been plenty of examples of Labour and Lib Dem corruption, and many areas of grey with all parties. The SNP, of course, also has it's "nasty party" image now. Reality is that all parties have plenty of rotten apples, but it doesn't mean you can insult all people that are members in such a hypocritical way.
Is whataboutery the best you can do?
Whether it be iffy development decisions made at the donor dinner table or hundred million pound PPE contracts handed without tender to the barman of the Health Secretary's local, its utterly brazen. They don't even bother to hid it any more, knowing that people like PB Tories will excuse it as part of an emergency procurement crisis or whatever.
I am not for a minute saying others haven't also been corrupt - the mysterious decision about fag advertising in F1 that in no way was influenced by the £1m from Bernie Ecclestone as a prime example. Difference is that I can call that out as corruption but PB Tories insist everyone else is corrupt except their own side.
We aren't fools on here. Save the spin for idiots on Twitter.
Indeed. Had it been an American University that had developed it, then the University would have taken a share in the profits. Billions of profits for the University that had discovered it.
Oxford seems to have treated that as a dirty concept.
I think the scientists involved in developing the vaccine thought that it should be available at cost.
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.
Indeed that's the difference between European and American universities - and a reason the biggest companies of our time are Americans. Also a reason why the best universities in the globe are mainly American ones too, there are no EU universities at all in the Top 50 in most rankings.
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.
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.
UK universities are very interested in monetising their research. The cuddly view of ivory towers and not-in-touch academics is a bit out of date, at least for the sciences.
Absolutely. I think that the special circumstances of the pandemic led to what was, in hindsight, a less than optimal decision. I think that one of the reasons AZN agreed to the Oxford terms was that they didn't really have a vaccine program of their own. ATHough equally, I think they deserve a great deal of credit for stepping up at a time of national emergency.
An established player like GSK might have made fewer missteps, of course. But they had their own vaccine in development, and were unlikely to agree to produce a cut price competitor.
I think that's right. AZN are doing this essentially at cost, but those costs are very helpful to AZN. They get to build new facilities, gain expertise in vaccine production etc etc. At the end of this, they won't have the eye watering Covid profits of some of the competitors, but they'll have funded, with costs covered, a whole mostly new area of their business.
Yes, for AZ there is a huge upside if becoming a major player in vaccine production and development. They will have learned a lot from the trial missteps, the PR missteps and from the slower than expected production ramp up.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
But this alternate reality is one where the Remainers won. It's not Boris Johnson PM making the decisions. Do you honestly think that a Remain voting UK would want to diverge from the EU on this issue? I find that not credible.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
How lovely
but it still doesnt distract from the reality that the border was weaponised and the sleeping dogs kicked. Enda Kenny made the point several times that a solution was possible but his successors decided to push it to the wire as aprt of the EU negotiations. They screwed up and will run away from the mess they made leaving everyone else to suffer.
Lol - you say "weaponsed" as if it wasn't the fundamental intractable problem. There were three options: 1. A "techno" border in Ireland which we refused to wait for until it was invented 2. A full customs border in the Irish Sea 3. Stay aligned and remove the need for the border
What beggars belief is that we HAVE stayed aligned. Our hard-fought 3rd country status being paraded by Tory MPs as victory is juxtaposed with their fave Liz Truss going round the world signing continuity aligned to the EU precisely where we always have been deals.
We could fix the issues with Norniron by accepting that we continue to be precisely aligned with EU standards and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. That being the case we can do a standards and customs deal with the EU to remove all those barriers we threw up, and avoid being taken to court by the WTO for refusing to treat EU imports like ROW imports (which we have to as no facilities built or officers hired).
We could do this. But won't. Because fantasists like your good self need to keep battling the perfidious forrin menace despite your victory over them.
given Im an Irish citizen I don't consider myself a foreigner in my own country.
I can quite happily recognise that the issue of the border was used a pressure point in the negotiations and Irish politicians who should have known better than to let it become someone elses plaything decided to play along. Now they have created a mess and will bugger off and leave others to pick up the pieces.
Isn't the UKs tougher line on foreign holidays, despite being in a better situation this year than last, at least partly part of our counter response to the EU on vaccines.
The possibility of variants is legitimate cover, but nothing that has happened with variants so far suggests foreign travel needs to remain impossible longer term - it would be precautionary.
Don't sort yourselves out, pfffft, UK holiday spend in the EU gone.
You don't even need to portray it as a "response". Just "red line" countries who don't have covid rates as low as ours. When countries get their act together e.g. Malta then open them up.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
Having dealt with the Japanese regulators in banking - "Face" is not an incorrect stereotype. Someone might have had to publicly resign over a mistake like that.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Sorry to remove the drama, but had the UK still been part of the EU we would almost certainly have done our own thing with respect to procurement of vaccines.
It is a great sadness that what is a international scientific triumph has been turned into nationalistic will waving.
... former Tory prime minister Cameron had personally lobbied senior figures in the Treasury and Downing Street to try to help it secure greater access to state-backed Covid-19 loan schemes.
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?
Whats the point in Tory MPs trying to block an investigation? 1. The story is already out there 2. The Tories are already openly corrupt and nobody cares, so why try to hide this?
Your accusation that "the Tories" are "openly corrupt" is complete partisan bollox, and I can say that as a big critic of the current government. Incompetent, yes, corrupt? No. Also there have been plenty of examples of Labour and Lib Dem corruption, and many areas of grey with all parties. The SNP, of course, also has it's "nasty party" image now. Reality is that all parties have plenty of rotten apples, but it doesn't mean you can insult all people that are members in such a hypocritical way.
Is whataboutery the best you can do?
Whether it be iffy development decisions made at the donor dinner table or hundred million pound PPE contracts handed without tender to the barman of the Health Secretary's local, its utterly brazen. They don't even bother to hid it any more, knowing that people like PB Tories will excuse it as part of an emergency procurement crisis or whatever.
I am not for a minute saying others haven't also been corrupt - the mysterious decision about fag advertising in F1 that in no way was influenced by the £1m from Bernie Ecclestone as a prime example. Difference is that I can call that out as corruption but PB Tories insist everyone else is corrupt except their own side.
We aren't fools on here. Save the spin for idiots on Twitter.
Corruption can be hard to define. What is certain is that many ministers (the Prime Minister included), have flouted the Ministerial Code. It says: “There must be no bullying and no harassment …; no misuse of taxpayer money. … The principles of integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty .. must be honoured at all times.”
You have to hand it to the evil EU. I had no idea that they ran the US government as well.
Could it be the Russian government is running both?
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.
Its possible! As is the flip side of the coin that the AZ vaccine isn't the smash hit we've all been told it is, but our government have pushed ahead anyway. We just don't know. I have taken the anti-EU ranting in the partisan spirit it was meant - whilst there are delays in delivery of the vaccine for them, they still need people to take it. So trashing it for supposed short-term political gain makes zero sense as they're screwed as soon as supplies finally land and people refuse to take it.
Either way, when I get an invite to have the thing I'll do so with a smile...
You don’t have to be an anti EU ranter to think that their handling of every aspect of the vaccine issue has been counterproductive, or actually destructive.
Of course! Its been a cluster fuck. But isn't that down to incompetence and the wildly different agendas being driven by leading members states forcing the EU into contradictory nonsense?
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.
Indeed the EMA has endorsed the drug and encouraged its continued use. It is Sovereign nations that have instituted their own policies (wrongly). AZN haven't helped their own case by producing a dogs breakfast of trials and multiple shortfalls of promised deliveries.
I think the future is the RNA viruses, particularly for autumn boosters to cover South African and Brazil strains.
South Africa sold its AZ doses the other day because they think it doesn't work very well - at least against the "South African" variant.
Meanwhile, Merkel and the various heads of German states stayed up half the night to agree to keep the supermarkets closed for an extra day over Easter. It's like a very bad joke.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
It’s a proper Welsh poll, the Senedd figures will also be on the Election Maps timeline I think.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
You have to hand it to the evil EU. I had no idea that they ran the US government as well.
Could it be the Russian government is running both?
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.
Interesting point. Both the Russians and the Chinese have a vested interested in discrediting the AZ/Oxford vaccine. Whoever delivers vaccine not only makes money but also has influence. The low cost AZ vaccine threatens this which may account for the online trolling.
The influence point is one reason people argued for more generous sharing with poorer countries before China and Russia got in there.
... former Tory prime minister Cameron had personally lobbied senior figures in the Treasury and Downing Street to try to help it secure greater access to state-backed Covid-19 loan schemes.
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?
Whats the point in Tory MPs trying to block an investigation? 1. The story is already out there 2. The Tories are already openly corrupt and nobody cares, so why try to hide this?
Your accusation that "the Tories" are "openly corrupt" is complete partisan bollox, and I can say that as a big critic of the current government. Incompetent, yes, corrupt? No. Also there have been plenty of examples of Labour and Lib Dem corruption, and many areas of grey with all parties. The SNP, of course, also has it's "nasty party" image now. Reality is that all parties have plenty of rotten apples, but it doesn't mean you can insult all people that are members in such a hypocritical way.
Is whataboutery the best you can do?
Whether it be iffy development decisions made at the donor dinner table or hundred million pound PPE contracts handed without tender to the barman of the Health Secretary's local, its utterly brazen. They don't even bother to hid it any more, knowing that people like PB Tories will excuse it as part of an emergency procurement crisis or whatever.
I am not for a minute saying others haven't also been corrupt - the mysterious decision about fag advertising in F1 that in no way was influenced by the £1m from Bernie Ecclestone as a prime example. Difference is that I can call that out as corruption but PB Tories insist everyone else is corrupt except their own side.
We aren't fools on here. Save the spin for idiots on Twitter.
Corruption can be hard to define. What is certain is that many ministers (the Prime Minister included), have flouted the Ministerial Code. It says: “There must be no bullying and no harassment …; no misuse of taxpayer money. … The principles of integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty .. must be honoured at all times.”
Quite. Which is why Tories demand that Sturgeon - who has been cleared of these things - must resign whilst their own - who have been found to have done all all these things - remain in place.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
OTOH He's not blocking vaccine exports (We could have Sputnik V if we wanted it I think)
My Russian moles say they just walked into a Moscow vaccination centre to get jabbed. Whether this shows abundant supply or low take-up is unclear; possibly something else.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
How lovely
but it still doesnt distract from the reality that the border was weaponised and the sleeping dogs kicked. Enda Kenny made the point several times that a solution was possible but his successors decided to push it to the wire as aprt of the EU negotiations. They screwed up and will run away from the mess they made leaving everyone else to suffer.
Lol - you say "weaponsed" as if it wasn't the fundamental intractable problem. There were three options: 1. A "techno" border in Ireland which we refused to wait for until it was invented 2. A full customs border in the Irish Sea 3. Stay aligned and remove the need for the border
What beggars belief is that we HAVE stayed aligned. Our hard-fought 3rd country status being paraded by Tory MPs as victory is juxtaposed with their fave Liz Truss going round the world signing continuity aligned to the EU precisely where we always have been deals.
We could fix the issues with Norniron by accepting that we continue to be precisely aligned with EU standards and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. That being the case we can do a standards and customs deal with the EU to remove all those barriers we threw up, and avoid being taken to court by the WTO for refusing to treat EU imports like ROW imports (which we have to as no facilities built or officers hired).
We could do this. But won't. Because fantasists like your good self need to keep battling the perfidious forrin menace despite your victory over them.
Not sure it’s quite so simple as to just state the problem as being “the border” wherever it is located. There are different ways of controlling customs borders, and whilst they have to involve checks on some level - and the ability to ramp up those checks if evidence is their if “light touch” regimes being abused.
From some little I’ve read is that part of the problem is that the U.K. are effectively prevented from running a “light touch” regime between GB and NI. Even though logically the risk of abuse is far lower than at actual external EU borders (most trade is obviously still internal U.K. trade).
The EU is insisting on this because there is no downside to themselves. Were the border between the Republic and NI there would be a mutual interest in keeping very low levels of checks. As there are at many other external EU borders where smuggling is considered low risk - and monitored via non visible methods and intervention.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Sorry to remove the drama, but had the UK still been part of the EU we would almost certainly have done our own thing with respect to procurement of vaccines.
It is a great sadness that what is a international scientific triumph has been turned into nationalistic will waving.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
It’s a proper Welsh poll, the Senedd figures will also be on the Election Maps timeline I think.
If this proves to be an accurate forecast it will be a "Blue Wall" across North Wales, as per Westminster results in 2019. The plates continue to shift.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Sorry to remove the drama, but had the UK still been part of the EU we would almost certainly have done our own thing with respect to procurement of vaccines.
It is a great sadness that what is a international scientific triumph has been turned into nationalistic will waving.
OTOH He's not blocking vaccine exports (We could have Sputnik V if we wanted it I think)
My Russian moles say they just walked into a Moscow vaccination centre to get jabbed. Whether this shows abundant supply or low take-up is unclear; possibly something else.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Bailey was on 28% in London yesterday, so if the Tories are on 30% on the Welsh constituency vote they continue to do better in Wales now than in the capital.
With Khan on over 50% and Labour in the mid 30s at most in Wales we can certainly say only London is the real Labour heartland now
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Sorry to remove the drama, but had the UK still been part of the EU we would almost certainly have done our own thing with respect to procurement of vaccines.
It is a great sadness that what is a international scientific triumph has been turned into nationalistic will waving.
nationalistic will waving !!!!!
I leave everything I own to the Party....
..only if you are completely bonkers.
Tories got a chunky bequest the other day because some old dear "liked Boris".
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
You have to hand it to the evil EU. I had no idea that they ran the US government as well.
Could it be the Russian government is running both?
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.
Its possible! As is the flip side of the coin that the AZ vaccine isn't the smash hit we've all been told it is, but our government have pushed ahead anyway. We just don't know. I have taken the anti-EU ranting in the partisan spirit it was meant - whilst there are delays in delivery of the vaccine for them, they still need people to take it. So trashing it for supposed short-term political gain makes zero sense as they're screwed as soon as supplies finally land and people refuse to take it.
Either way, when I get an invite to have the thing I'll do so with a smile...
You don’t have to be an anti EU ranter to think that their handling of every aspect of the vaccine issue has been counterproductive, or actually destructive.
Of course! Its been a cluster fuck. But isn't that down to incompetence and the wildly different agendas being driven by leading members states forcing the EU into contradictory nonsense?
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.
Indeed the EMA has endorsed the drug and encouraged its continued use. It is Sovereign nations that have instituted their own policies (wrongly). AZN haven't helped their own case by producing a dogs breakfast of trials and multiple shortfalls of promised deliveries.
I think the future is the RNA viruses, particularly for autumn boosters to cover South African and Brazil strains.
South Africa sold its AZ doses the other day because they think it doesn't work very well - at least against the "South African" variant.
Meanwhile, Merkel and the various heads of German states stayed up half the night to agree to keep the supermarkets closed for an extra day over Easter. It's like a very bad joke.
Sold the AZN, you say. Has anyone found where the money went? 10-to-1 someone has a very nice new watch.....
And though certain treatments have been made available at reduced cost previously eg AIDS, I think a lot are not happy that their business model, or campaign to undermine patents, has been blown up.
Having said that, it's really Keep Calm and Carry On.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The key is the timing - we already had our detailed agreement with AZN in May 2020; the four-nation consortium reached their heads of agreement (a one page document, I believe) in June, which was when complaints from smaller EU nations led Germany to propose that the EU take over the exercise. Even then, Hungary and more recently some other EU nations continued to progress their own side deals.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Sorry to remove the drama, but had the UK still been part of the EU we would almost certainly have done our own thing with respect to procurement of vaccines.
It is a great sadness that what is a international scientific triumph has been turned into nationalistic will waving.
nationalistic will waving !!!!!
I leave everything I own to the Party....
..only if you are completely bonkers.
Tories got a chunky bequest the other day because some old dear "liked Boris".
I wouldn't leave them a bean. One would have thought that age would teach you that no politician is trustworthy.
OTOH He's not blocking vaccine exports (We could have Sputnik V if we wanted it I think)
My Russian moles say they just walked into a Moscow vaccination centre to get jabbed. Whether this shows abundant supply or low take-up is unclear; possibly something else.
Very low take up.
Russians make the French seem overwhelmingly in favour of vaccination.
My wife has friends and family in Russia and Ukraine. Half of them choose to home school their kids rather than vaccinate them, there’s a massive amount of social media bollocks spreading disinformation. In Kiev they had to close all the schools last year, not because of Covid but because of measles.
It’s sad to watch otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people get totally taken in by the anti-vax hysteria in large parts of the world - and it’s going to prolong this pandemic by months if not years.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
You have to hand it to the evil EU. I had no idea that they ran the US government as well.
Could it be the Russian government is running both?
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.
Its possible! As is the flip side of the coin that the AZ vaccine isn't the smash hit we've all been told it is, but our government have pushed ahead anyway. We just don't know. I have taken the anti-EU ranting in the partisan spirit it was meant - whilst there are delays in delivery of the vaccine for them, they still need people to take it. So trashing it for supposed short-term political gain makes zero sense as they're screwed as soon as supplies finally land and people refuse to take it.
Either way, when I get an invite to have the thing I'll do so with a smile...
You don’t have to be an anti EU ranter to think that their handling of every aspect of the vaccine issue has been counterproductive, or actually destructive.
Of course! Its been a cluster fuck. But isn't that down to incompetence and the wildly different agendas being driven by leading members states forcing the EU into contradictory nonsense?
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.
Indeed the EMA has endorsed the drug and encouraged its continued use. It is Sovereign nations that have instituted their own policies (wrongly). AZN haven't helped their own case by producing a dogs breakfast of trials and multiple shortfalls of promised deliveries.
I think the future is the RNA viruses, particularly for autumn boosters to cover South African and Brazil strains.
South Africa sold its AZ doses the other day because they think it doesn't work very well - at least against the "South African" variant.
Meanwhile, Merkel and the various heads of German states stayed up half the night to agree to keep the supermarkets closed for an extra day over Easter. It's like a very bad joke.
Sold the AZN, you say. Has anyone found where the money went? 10-to-1 someone has a very nice new watch.....
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
You have to hand it to the evil EU. I had no idea that they ran the US government as well.
Could it be the Russian government is running both?
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.
Its possible! As is the flip side of the coin that the AZ vaccine isn't the smash hit we've all been told it is, but our government have pushed ahead anyway. We just don't know. I have taken the anti-EU ranting in the partisan spirit it was meant - whilst there are delays in delivery of the vaccine for them, they still need people to take it. So trashing it for supposed short-term political gain makes zero sense as they're screwed as soon as supplies finally land and people refuse to take it.
Either way, when I get an invite to have the thing I'll do so with a smile...
You don’t have to be an anti EU ranter to think that their handling of every aspect of the vaccine issue has been counterproductive, or actually destructive.
Of course! Its been a cluster fuck. But isn't that down to incompetence and the wildly different agendas being driven by leading members states forcing the EU into contradictory nonsense?
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.
Indeed the EMA has endorsed the drug and encouraged its continued use. It is Sovereign nations that have instituted their own policies (wrongly). AZN haven't helped their own case by producing a dogs breakfast of trials and multiple shortfalls of promised deliveries.
I think the future is the RNA viruses, particularly for autumn boosters to cover South African and Brazil strains.
South Africa sold its AZ doses the other day because they think it doesn't work very well - at least against the "South African" variant.
Meanwhile, Merkel and the various heads of German states stayed up half the night to agree to keep the supermarkets closed for an extra day over Easter. It's like a very bad joke.
Sold the AZN, you say. Has anyone found where the money went? 10-to-1 someone has a very nice new watch.....
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
The German regulator wasn't the one the evidence was submitted to or scrutinised by since they weren't making the decision, the EMA was. Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Bailey was on 28% in London yesterday, so if the Tories are on 30% on the Welsh constituency vote they continue to do better in Wales now than in the capital.
With Khan on over 50% and Labour in the mid 30s at most in Wales we can certainly say only London is the real Labour heartland now
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
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.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
Comments
The possibility of variants is legitimate cover, but nothing that has happened with variants so far suggests foreign travel needs to remain impossible longer term - it would be precautionary.
Don't sort yourselves out, pfffft, UK holiday spend in the EU gone.
1. The story is already out there
2. The Tories are already openly corrupt and nobody cares, so why try to hide this?
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Makes things a little bit tighter and car/driver failures might be costlier, but shouldn't make a huge difference otherwise.
Unsure how it'll affect the three potential sprint races but they haven't hammered the detail out on those yet anyway.
Also quite a lot about how the u3a was going to manage and how to operate Zoom.
The lass in Greggs must have fancied me because she gave me tons of extra bacon in my baguette and didn't charge me extra.
Hopefully this day has started as it means to go on...
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
I think that the special circumstances of the pandemic led to what was, in hindsight, a less than optimal decision.
I think that one of the reasons AZN agreed to the Oxford terms was that they didn't really have a vaccine program of their own. ATHough equally, I think they deserve a great deal of credit for stepping up at a time of national emergency.
An established player like GSK might have made fewer missteps, of course. But they had their own vaccine in development, and were unlikely to agree to produce a cut price competitor.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
Apparently before the horn grows, they are very friendly and sociable. Basically pigs.
What I didn't know and found most interesting, is the prehensile lip. They loved searching peoples pockets for bananas using them.... As a joke, the soldiers had taught them by putting bananas in their own pockets - so they picked the pockets of all the visitors...
but it still doesnt distract from the reality that the border was weaponised and the sleeping dogs kicked. Enda Kenny made the point several times that a solution was possible but his successors decided to push it to the wire as aprt of the EU negotiations. They screwed up and will run away from the mess they made leaving everyone else to suffer.
It is a great sadness that what is a international scientific triumph has been turned into nationalistic will waving.
The Labour Party, and others, were arguing we should (even having left) sign up to the EU vaccination programme. Somewhat difficult to imagine us going our own separate way having just voted to be in the EU, and with a far more pro-EU Commons.
Apparently, the one animal the rhinos won't charge is an elephant. Also the tigers tend to behave around them.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
1. A "techno" border in Ireland which we refused to wait for until it was invented
2. A full customs border in the Irish Sea
3. Stay aligned and remove the need for the border
What beggars belief is that we HAVE stayed aligned. Our hard-fought 3rd country status being paraded by Tory MPs as victory is juxtaposed with their fave Liz Truss going round the world signing continuity aligned to the EU precisely where we always have been deals.
We could fix the issues with Norniron by accepting that we continue to be precisely aligned with EU standards and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. That being the case we can do a standards and customs deal with the EU to remove all those barriers we threw up, and avoid being taken to court by the WTO for refusing to treat EU imports like ROW imports (which we have to as no facilities built or officers hired).
We could do this. But won't. Because fantasists like your good self need to keep battling the perfidious forrin menace despite your victory over them.
- many poor country diseases are simply not financially viable to develop vaccines/treatments for, instead fairly trivial but commercially big things like male pattern baldness are researched.
- some countries/consumers get royally screwed on pricing - see price gouging from the likes of Shkreli. We're fortunate here to have national buying by the NHS and be big enough to more or less set our price in many cases (I know of several cases where the NHS has effectively walked away from negotiations for something that costs too much for its benefit to then be offered a better price). Pharma costs explain much of the huge disparity in healthcare costs between here and the US.
The pharma world is still pretty murky, too. Pre-registraiton of trials and outcomes has helped a lot and prevented unfavourable trials disappearing and cherry-picking of outcomes, but there are still differences in trial results depending on the funder. Not blatant fabrication, but there are a lot of decisions, not all clear cut that are within the scientists' control and may be influenced by funders, for example choice of dosing, comparators, substance used in control arm, adverse events recording, length of followup, even the study population and choice of exclusions. If you'd like examples, go on Google Scholar for statin trials - you'll find that which statin is best depends quite a lot on who did the trial and who funded it.
And then of course I got the bill. Emails charged per £XXX each flaming time.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
And note that a significant amount of that university research is funded out of the profits of earlier successes.
Shades of Beal, Sombrero Island and the Foreign Office etc.....
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
Whether it be iffy development decisions made at the donor dinner table or hundred million pound PPE contracts handed without tender to the barman of the Health Secretary's local, its utterly brazen. They don't even bother to hid it any more, knowing that people like PB Tories will excuse it as part of an emergency procurement crisis or whatever.
I am not for a minute saying others haven't also been corrupt - the mysterious decision about fag advertising in F1 that in no way was influenced by the £1m from Bernie Ecclestone as a prime example. Difference is that I can call that out as corruption but PB Tories insist everyone else is corrupt except their own side.
We aren't fools on here. Save the spin for idiots on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1374155646984187905?s=21
I can quite happily recognise that the issue of the border was used a pressure point in the negotiations and Irish politicians who should have known better than to let it become someone elses plaything decided to play along.
Now they have created a mess and will bugger off and leave others to pick up the pieces.
Just "red line" countries who don't have covid rates as low as ours.
When countries get their act together e.g. Malta then open them up.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
https://twitter.com/samstreetwrites/status/1374138875136901120
OTOH He's not blocking vaccine exports (We could have Sputnik V if we wanted it I think)
Meanwhile, Merkel and the various heads of German states stayed up half the night to agree to keep the supermarkets closed for an extra day over Easter. It's like a very bad joke.
https://twitter.com/ReutersUK/status/1374286062500057090?s=20
"all tools" eh??
Got to get those vaccines so they can store in a cupboard somewhere
Right now we're in 1940 and we are once against standing alone. It's British Exceptionalism at its best.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
From some little I’ve read is that part of the problem is that the U.K. are effectively prevented from running a “light touch” regime between GB and NI. Even though logically the risk of abuse is far lower than at actual external EU borders (most trade is obviously still internal U.K. trade).
The EU is insisting on this because there is no downside to themselves. Were the border between the Republic and NI there would be a mutual interest in keeping very low levels of checks. As there are at many other external EU borders where smuggling is considered low risk - and monitored via non visible methods and intervention.
https://twitter.com/Daltmann10/status/1374247026771292160
With Khan on over 50% and Labour in the mid 30s at most in Wales we can certainly say only London is the real Labour heartland now
That sound you hear is the ripping up of contracts and the shredding of what little reputation the EU had left
Macron, Merkel, UvdL "all tools".
https://fullfact.org/online/elisa-granato-fake/
And though certain treatments have been made available at reduced cost previously eg AIDS, I think a lot are not happy that their business model, or campaign to undermine patents, has been blown up.
Having said that, it's really Keep Calm and Carry On.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
I am going with withholding further payments to the EU.
Ursula and Jens ?
And for those who do not live in Wales, Labour and Drakeford have been an unmitigated disaster especially in education and health
My wife has friends and family in Russia and Ukraine. Half of them choose to home school their kids rather than vaccinate them, there’s a massive amount of social media bollocks spreading disinformation. In Kiev they had to close all the schools last year, not because of Covid but because of measles.
It’s sad to watch otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people get totally taken in by the anti-vax hysteria in large parts of the world - and it’s going to prolong this pandemic by months if not years.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
"The statement made no mention of prices and did not name the countries that had purchased the vaccines."
Seems to be a million or a 1.5 million doses to other African countries.
The German regulator wasn't the one the evidence was submitted to or scrutinised by since they weren't making the decision, the EMA was. Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.