According to Soriot in that Repubblica article, AZ has full capacity for the EU ‘drug product’ i.e. fill-and-finish, it’s the EU ‘drug substance’ i.e. the actual vaccine in bulk which has limited production. But we don’t know yet what the raid on their Belgian premises turned up.
Graham wrote:
The nationalism that is coming out of the situation is unfortunate, but inevitable if the EU wishes to paint the UK as a bogeyman.
As others have said, the EU isn’t painting the UK as the bogeyman. They are very critical of AZ, but I’ve not heard any criticism of the UK.
Graham wrote:
If the argument is with AZ, why are they threatening to try to stop Pfizer exporting to the UK?
I don’t think they have. They have threatened to block transport of the AZ vaccine if they believe it was part of the order for the EU being diverted elsewhere, but I’ve not heard any suggestion of blocking the Pfizer vaccine. But obviously once they put an authorisation system in place, it must apply to all manufacturers. But I don’t think there is any threat to block Pfizer vaccine. Why would they? Pfizer is fulfilling its contract.
Graham wrote:
Perhaps we might imagine if things were the other way around?If the AZ product had failed completely and the EU was ahead of the game with millions of Sanofi shots going into arms all across Europe, do you think the EU would offer some of it to the UK? Of course not, it would be the “well, you wanted out” rhetoric.
I agree the EU would probably not divert any of its vaccine to the UK. But I don’t believe that they are asking the UK to divert any of its vaccine to the EU. Rather there seems to be a suspicion that some of the EU vaccine has been diverted to the UK, and they want that back. I don’t think it’s clear yet if that suspicion is a correct one or just being paranoid.
But in any case, I don’t think it’s fair to just the EU on what you think they would do in a hypothetical situation. Better to judge them on how the reacted in the real world.
It’s not that long ago when the UK was handling its second wave very badly, that we heard MedEwok tell us that they were preparing their hospitals in Germany to take patients in from the UK. No nationalism, no politics. Just a willingness to put themselves on the front line and get stuck in to help the UK when they needed help. Thankfully it wasn’t needed in the end.
A few weeks later another part of the UK did get overrun. Hospitals in Northern Ireland ran out of space and ambulances started to queue up outside the hospitals with nowhere to put patients. Without question, hospitals in the Republic of Ireland, who are already under severe strain themselves, opened their doors and the UK ambulances were diverted to our hospitals until NI got its situation back under control.
If you want to judge the EU harshly on an hypothetical situation, you should at least be grateful and appreciative when it unquestioningly gets stuck in the help, when you actually need help. I don’t suppose either assistance got much coverage in the UK tabloid press.
I’m gonna post this german text below. Not from me. Just food for thought.
Sum up:
A large part of the population is too fat. Many die due to it. A large part is diabetic, many die due to it.
Many people die of hunger everyday.
A lot more people die every day due to other health issues compared to Covid deaths. However, it doesn’t make the news. There’s no lockdown, the govt isn’t really concerned.
(Edit: I’ll try and post a translation later)
From what I read and hear, the EU’s worst mistake, apart from being too slow in general, was to accept delivery on a ‘best effort’ basis, which is negotiation speak for ’let’s see’. They were too slow and bound by their usual procedures, and they didn’t understand that back in summer, every vaccine producer was essentially a monopolist. Germany would have been much faster would they have negotiated it nationally, like Israel, the US or the UK. The idea to give it to the EU was the right thing to do, but they underestimated the EU’s incompetence.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
For the reasons I gave I dont think it is possible to make a list of this type that is either helpful or isnt misleading.
What’s misleading about it? It’s simply data put together so you can see the differences from country to country. Now conclusions are done there, it’s just real-time and online display of data. If that is misleading to you then I don’t know what isn’t.
Anyway, the newest development is that the Novavax vaccine only gives 50% protection against the South African mutation. Basically this means Novavax is useless for it’s envisioned intention: individual protect against Corona and help stopping the pandemic. The other aspect is that no one will take a vaccine that doesn’t give full protection, when others do. Might as well throw it away.
LeSving wrote:
Anyway, the newest development is that the Novavax vaccine only gives 50% protection against the South African mutation. Basically this means Novavax is useless for it’s envisioned intention
50% on what basis?
We’ve already seen that different vaccines have had different yardsticks applied: one vaccine in one trial, effectiveness is measured against “prevented trial subject from getting symptoms” and in another, effectiveness is measured against “prevented trial subject from getting the virus at all”, which naturally had a lower number as it’s a higher bar to clear.
If Novavax is, for argument’s sake, only 50% effective at stopping a patient from getting the virus at all, but 90% effective at preventing the patient from developing symptoms, and 99% effective at preventing severe symptoms, it’s not at all useless.
dublinpilot wrote:
I don’t think they have.
The EU have been very clear that they expect Astra Zeneca to divert UK production to them as necessary to fulfill the EU order, regardless of what effect this might have on the UK delivery contract. FT article here.
dublinpilot wrote:
But in any case, I don’t think it’s fair to just the EU on what you think they would do in a hypothetical situation. Better to judge them on how the reacted in the real world.
Indeed I do judge them on how they react in the real world. In the real world, the EU has started shouting and screaming and making threats – mostly to divert attention from the fact that it has failed to secure a timely vaccine supply for its member states.
dublinpilot wrote:
It’s not that long ago when the UK was handling its second wave very badly, that we heard MedEwok tell us that they were preparing their hospitals in Germany to take patients in from the UK. No nationalism, no politics. Just a willingness to put themselves on the front line and get stuck in to help the UK when they needed help. Thankfully it wasn’t needed in the end.A few weeks later another part of the UK did get overrun. Hospitals in Northern Ireland ran out of space and ambulances started to queue up outside the hospitals with nowhere to put patients. Without question, hospitals in the Republic of Ireland, who are already under severe strain themselves, opened their doors and the UK ambulances were diverted to our hospitals until NI got its situation back under control.
If you want to judge the EU harshly on an hypothetical situation, you should at least be grateful and appreciative when it unquestioningly gets stuck in the help, when you actually need help. I don’t suppose either assistance got much coverage in the UK tabloid press.
Both of these issues got a fair amount of coverage in the UK press. The tabloids I wouldn’t know about. We are indeed grateful for all help offered, but neither issue was anything to do with the EU. Perhaps there is a significant point here – I hope you don’t assume that when I refer to ‘the EU’ in this context I refer to its member states? In general when talking in such a context I refer to the bloc leadership in Brussels – the European Commission, and to a lesser extent the EU parliament. It is insightful that it is that leadership getting worked up and playing a blame game, whereas the member states naturally understand that if you order later you get it delivered later and so are more focused on how they solve the issue. One thing is for certain, next time Brussels decrees that something like this be done centrally you will hear 27 voices say “non!”
LeSving wrote:
Anyway, the newest development is that the Novavax vaccine only gives 50% protection against the South African mutation. Basically this means Novavax is useless for it’s envisioned intention: individual protect against Corona and help stopping the pandemic. The other aspect is that no one will take a vaccine that doesn’t give full protection, when others do. Might as well throw it away.
Not useless at all. If I offer you a bullet-proof vest that stops 50% of all bullets, are you better off not wearing it?
People aren’t going to get a choice which vaccine they get. Perhaps in the US, in time, this will become a practical possibility. You can refuse any vaccine of course, but no country doing a national roll-out is going to allow you to choose in this way. If you refuse brand X, you won’t get offered brand Y.
LeSving wrote:
What’s misleading about it? It’s simply data put together so you can see the differences from country to country. Now conclusions are done there, it’s just real-time and online display of data. If that is misleading to you then I don’t know what isn’t.Anyway, the newest development is that the Novavax vaccine only gives 50% protection against the South African mutation. Basically this means Novavax is useless for it’s envisioned intention: individual protect against Corona and help stopping the pandemic. The other aspect is that no one will take a vaccine that doesn’t give full protection, when others do. Might as well throw it away.
Angrybird 2
LeSving
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway
I think this is exactly what is misleading, it represents differences between countries, without making clear the data is slewed. This is always the danger of this type of approach. If fed to the masses it paints certain countries in a poor light, and people dont understand why, so jump to the conclusion it is because they are incompetantly governed. This may or may not be true of course. As far as I am concerned people can publish what they like of this sort, as long as it isnt taken too serioulsy!
Anyway I think on this one we may just have to disagree. It is an interesting data set, but I cant take it very serioulsy and I dont find it very useful in conveying any particular message. In fact what message do you think it is attempting to convey? The answer may clarrify our different positions on this one.
LeSving wrote:
What’s misleading about it?
It’s not intended to mislead, bit it is flawed. 1/3rd of the score are effectively directly corelated with the countries size (absolute number of infected and deaths), and 1/3rd is highly unreliable because it depends on who you test (ill, symptomatic, or everyone). While I generally like looking at numbers, playing with them and seeing what they tell us, this is Kindergarten level of statistical analysis not worth the paper it is not written on.
break break
Snoopy wrote:
A lot more people die every day due to other health issues compared to Covid deaths. However, it doesn’t make the news. There’s no lockdown, the govt isn’t really concerned.[screenshots of German posts]
Reading through these post screenshots, I don’t really know what it takes to get it into people’s heads that an infectious disease that kills 1-2% of the population, and hospitalizes even more, is orders of magnitude above anything else. The last bit of that “food for thought” post is either unbelievably uninformed or truly idiotic: “If we had politicians who really cared about the health of the masses, we would not panic about a Virus which infected 1.2% of the population and killed 0.03% of the people, but about topics that affect 100% of the people.”
Well, it can infect 100% of the people (although in reality it won’t, but nobody is invulnerable)
Clearly the author is unable to perform simple arithmetic – the numbers she uses mean that if this infects 60% of the population, then 1.5% of the people will die, and if that happens in a period of 9 months, that means the death rate will be around TRIPLE the normal death rate, from all causes, and around THIRTY times the death rate from influenza and pneumonia.
Even on a metric she uses – she indirectly says politicians should focus more on the environment because 20% of deaths are related to environmental factors – Covid would be 15x as bad.
Which is a shame. In the mids of this numerical nonsense, there is the real argument to be had – is the cure worse than the disease?
Is the effect not socialising with other children for a year has on the current toddlers worth it? The diminished opportunity for those in education? The economic damage affecting swathes of the population, many of them at the poorer end? I really wish that we would have a better debate about that, unfortunately most people asking these questions discredit themselves with denial of the severity of the disease instead of focusing on the severity of the ‘cure’.
