gallois wrote:
As a matter of interest why is there no criticism of India which has also put an export ban on AZ vaccine produced under licence in India going to the UK? 10m doses I believe.
Probably because the UK government is aware that public criticism of another government with which you hope to reach an agreement is not a good idea?
To throw in another complication, production in India is dependent on an IP licence from AZ which presumably comes with conditions and perhaps some degree of (theoretical) control?
And a final technicality, it is not an export ban but rather the stopping of a particular shipment. It’s an important technical/legal/political difference, albeit not a practical one.
No doubt it’s all being discussed behind the scenes.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
If there is a partisan approach, it is simply that I find it difficult to see why the EU is dragging the UK into this by threatening to block supplies.
The notion that “dragging UK in” is happening is already a partisan view of the world. There’s also a narrative of the story that is completely independent from the UK (or any other country). Just imagine the following hypothetical conversation:
EU: Dear AZ please deliver our vaccine
AZ: We won’t
EU: You owe it to us as we have a contract
AZ: But we can’t
EU: Why?
AZ: Because we don’t have the vaccine for you! (sorry)
EU: Oh yes, you have – it’s stored in one of your warehouses in (… somewhere in the EU ..) – you see? So please fulfill your contract and give it to us.
AZ: But we won’t – we rather ship it somewhere else
EU: But you owe it to us – so we prevent you from shipping it somewhere else
So how often one had to use the word “UK” to explain what is happening? Exactly – zero times. It is absolutely not an attack on the UK – but for some UK politicians that have an interest to make it look like one because they fear that a company as unreliable as AZ could break its contractual obligations towards the UK as well – and to put pressure on this company to avoid this and to prepare for the defense against public opinion that would figure out that the UK also has no forcing mechanism to make AZ actually deliver they started the verbal war against the EU.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I find it difficult to see why the EU is dragging the UK into this by threatening to block supplies
While I don’t think it is appropriate, I can certainly understand why they think of it that way.
The entire EU procurement effort was a well-intended act of solidarity in the EU, to ensure that the smaller countries can get their fair share of the supply, and to secure better terms for all. So in their minds somebody else getting a higher proportion of a vaccine is “not fair”, regardless of whether this is the result of ordering late, an accident because ‘their’ sites took long to set up, or something else. Or to use the car analogy, they want to share somebody else’s Jaguar until theirs is ready…
I am not sure exactly who dragged whom into which argument, there certainly wasn’t much dragging needed to trigger Boris…
Fuji_Abound wrote:
but does it go even further? It would seem sometimes it is almost as if the UK should not be ahead of the EU, so even though you are correct, the fact it had levelled up the playing field, would make it ok. It is almost as if the UK should still play by the EU rules, even though it is no longer part of the EU.
Quite probably. We have heard talk of the EU desiring ‘solidarity’ and ‘reciprocity’ on vaccines, and of course the new export control rules take account of how far advanced a country’s vaccination programme is compared to the EU – so yes – it is essentially wanting to ‘level down’ non-EU countries if they are receiving vaccines produced in the EU.
MedEwok wrote:
nterestingly, “on the ground” in my hospital everything continues almost as always, no postponement of elective surgery like last year…
It’s either that your hospital management doesn’t care too much or that they are actually pretty good at utilization management: ALOS for elective treatments in German hospitals is between 6 and 7 days (total ALOS is 7.something and as the complex polytraumata and transplantations are not elective it is a bit shorter). Given the current infection rate the peak of ICU utilization is very likely not to happen before 2nd week of April. So it is comparatively safe to still do electives now.
You/we will see if it is a very good or very random decision by your management when they stop doing hip replacements and other major electives around mid next week to empty up the pipeline.
Malibuflyer wrote:
some UK politicians that have an interest to make it look like one because they fear that a company as unreliable as AZ could break its contractual obligations towards the UK as well – and to put pressure on this company to avoid this and to prepare for the defense against public opinion that would figure out that the UK also has no forcing mechanism to make AZ actually deliver they started the verbal war against the EU.
I don’t think anyone in the UK – public, government or media – is afraid of AZ ‘breaking contractual obligations’ to us.
Each week they send us whatever they send us. It is as much as they can manage, but as with the EU, it is nothing like the amount in our original contract and delivery schedules. But we are grateful for it and we use it.
As for your hypothetical conversation, AZ has not shipped any significant quantity of vaccine from the EU to the UK. Nearly all of what we have used to date is domestic production, with a bit from India. If the EU does not like them shipping to the Covax programme well that is a point of view, but it does not look good internationally.
Cobalt and Malibu
but there was a specific and categoric threat to block UK supplies. That was the basis of the tiff, and this threat could only originate from the EU.
As Graham says, the EU wants solidarity, with which I agree, for them, and is a sound idea, and doubtless would have included the UK, but for the fact and as I said earlier this ship sailed last year, and the EU knew it had sailed when they contracted AZ. They need to view the UK like the USA, this is the simple truth. The UK is not part of EU solidarity and not party to the commercial arrangements between the EU and AZ that were also settled after the ship had left.
Cobalt wrote:
I am not sure exactly who dragged whom into which argument, there certainly wasn’t much dragging needed to trigger Boris…
I don’t think he’s said a great deal, has he? Especially not about the raid on the Catalent plant in Italy, which is what most folk seemed to get worked up about.
Hancock certainly made some brusque comments about the nature of the contracts that, to me at least, seemed ill-advised.
As far as I can tell Boris is in ongoing discussions with various EU leaders over some production in the Netherlands that AZ wish to ship to the UK. Clearly in order to allow this the EU want to receive some UK production in return. That being the case there doesn’t seem much point in a pointless swap, why not save the shipping costs and each keep what you have?
@Malibuflyer, while your summary may reflect one part of the dialogue, there is one thing missing
Late January, the Commission invoiced Article 16 of the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland with the stated objective to prevent vaccine exports to non-EU countries via Ireland. So behind
“AZ: But we won’t – we rather ship it somewhere else”
“EU: But you owe it to us – so we prevent you from shipping it somewhere else”
insert the following
“EU: And we will trigger the customs border between the EU and Northern Ireland NOW”.
While technically speaking that is only logical, that certainly dragged Brexit and the UK into it – not because of the vaccine itself, but about the general impact of a customs border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The EU Commission had to row back within a day, but that certainly got everybody’s attention.
Graham wrote:
Hancock certainly made some brusque comments about the nature of the contracts that, to me at least, seemed ill-advised.
Yep, but he is the guy in charge of buying that Jaguar, so he probably couldn’t help himself.
Perhaps we can move some of this political discussion to the other thread – happy to continue here, but I would like to get back to the facts and stuff.
So here is a thing I saw today: The Economist’s Covid-19 risk indicator, which allows one to estimate the risk of hospitalisation and death based on age and gender, and how it changes based on co-morbidities. It is based on US Data, but with an overall CFR of around 2% is in the right ball-park, as the Americans say.
It really dispels the myth that it is only, or even mostly, people with serious comorbidities that succumb to the virus.
The thing is not behind a paywall, here, and shows that a 80 year old man with NO comorbidities has a 30% chance of hospitalisation, increasing to nearly 50% with comorbidities. This focuses on single severe comorbidities only, so of course those with multiple will be worse off.
