This comment in the business section of the UK’s largest-circulation broadsheet newspaper seems typical of the British view of issues surrounding and leading to a possible forthcoming EU-UK “vaccine war”:
Blaming Britain will not save Europe from a self-made vaccine disaster
So much for the British view, but what are the serious continental business newspapers saying? Can any of my fellow EU citizens point us towards a comparable/contrasting article from France or Germany?
The EU really does seem to be making a mess of things.
For those of us who’ve never been keen on them it just seems like a continuation of their previous behaviour. It is interesting to see more people now recognising that we dodged a bullet.
The vaccine fiasco does seem to be a real mess for the European countries in terms of getting out of this as most now seem set on vaccination being the only end game.
I recently looked at the local case numbers and they’re down to below 20 reported cases in the last 7 days. With numbers this low surely restrictions should be removed.
There is no way AZ could be “hiding” stuff in their factories on the mainland, given that all the workers are living locally. It’s about as likely as faking the Apollo moon landings. Possible, I suppose, but absolutely zero chance of getting enough people to keep their mouths shut.
Very damaging to future investment in the EU by external multinationals.
Well at least Merkel has today taken responsibility for something.
Jacko wrote:
This comment in the business section of the UK’s largest-circulation broadsheet newspaper seems typical of the British view of issues surrounding and leading to a possible forthcoming EU-UK “vaccine war”:
Blaming Britain will not save Europe from a self-made vaccine disasterSo much for the British view, but what are the serious continental business newspapers saying? Can any of my fellow EU citizens point us towards a comparable/contrasting article from France or Germany?
While I don’t want to debate the finer points of what a ‘serious business newspaper’ is, I don’t think anyone reads the Telegraph because of its reputation for deep analysis, subtlety and finely balanced arguments.
There are probably similar accusatory headlines in Europe, not hard to find – La Stampa: “AstraZeneca nasconde 30 milioni di dosi in Italia. E’ scontro con Londra” – loosely translated to UK newspaper style headline as “AstraZeneca hides 30 million doses in Italy in a clash with London”.
There are also more balanced views… for example, the FAZ (a quality newspaper not seen in Britain for a long time) reports the facts calmly.
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/aufregung-um-impfstofflager-von-astra-zeneca-17261465.html
Cobalt wrote:
ne thing one learns very quickly when spending any time there is that there is no such thing as “THE USA”
…..
but in the US, the top three are:
– New Jersey: 272
– New York (state, not NYC): 254
– Massachusetts: 246
Or, to cut the story even shorter: Within the same environment (health system, legal system, etc.) population density is one of the most if not the most important driver for spread of a pandemic.
Texas might look as an outlier in that respect – but the population density within Texas is also very broadly distributed and if you look at it by county the rule also holds for Texas
Just to put the vaccination numbers into perspective – if supply of a specific vaccine stops for some time (for whatever region), the strategy of most of the European countries could start looking not that bad against the UK strategy…
I dont entirely understand this graph?
Presumably it indicates that the UK is lagging way behind with the second dose, which is presumably becuase the UK is adopting a longer second dose protocol. I am lend to understand stocks have been set aside for the second doses, but perhaps they arent entirely in the UK – I dont know.
While stopping “new” people being vaccinating is one thing, if Europe were to block supplies to enable second doses to be given, I can only imagine the political fall out would be spectacular. That may well be a step way to far.
Malibuflyer wrote:
the strategy of most of the European countries could start looking not that bad against the UK strategy…
…if you assume that having a single jab into almost half the population in addition to the numbers double-dosed is of limited or negligible value!
The evidence to date suggests it is not. The daily deaths in the UK continues to fall, with the weekly deaths continually 30% or more lower than the previous week since our vaccination programme got into gear. The number of Covid patients in hospital is half what it was at the start of March and also continues to fall. Daily new cases are ~10% of what they were in January, but have plateaued at ~5k per day which is accounted for mainly by the as-yet unjabbed healthy under 50s.
Such a large all-round effect is not caused by having 2.5m of the most vulnerable double-jabbed, it’s the effect on the spread of almost half the population having the good degree of immunity (certainly way above 50%) that one dose brings. Our government is now struggling to justify continued restrictions since the impact on the NHS has come down to very manageable levels.
It looks like the EU is poised to take some drastic action at their summit tomorrow. Fortunately for the UK we can continue, as I understand it, on AZ vaccines coming from a UK-only supply chain. If the EU bans exports to the UK then our vaccination rate will surely slow, but I would judge that we’ve done enough already that it’ll be an irritation rather than a real problem. The irony is that any embargo will be largely symbolic – the EU population is so large that even if it seized all Pfizer and AZ production within the EU it wouldn’t noticeably speed things up.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I dont entirely understand this graph?Presumably it indicates that the UK is lagging way behind with the second dose, which is presumably becuase the UK is adopting a longer second dose protocol. I am lend to understand stocks have been set aside for the second doses, but perhaps they arent entirely in the UK – I dont know.
Correct on the first point. We have prioritised getting a single dose into as many people as possible – that is thought to have the biggest effect on the spread of infection.
They are set aside to some extent. Not 1 for 1, but 1 per 2 or something like that.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
Europe were to block supplies to enable second doses to be given, I can only imagine the political fall out would be spectacular. That may well be a step way to far.
Good point, fully agree. There must be people in the UK due a second dose of Pfizer sometime in the next couple of months where that dose is not yet in the country. If they pass their 12 week deadline and are prevented from having it through an EU export ban….. well. That is going to look pretty bad.
Graham wrote:
If they pass their 12 week deadline and are prevented from having it through an EU export ban….. well. That is going to look pretty bad.
That is highly unlikely. While the rhetoric and behaviour of the EU Commission and some leaders is quite aggressive, the threats are specifically about preventing export of the AZ vaccine, not Pfizer, on the basis that they should be sharing their production more evenly between the countries that ordered it (or the other way round, all countries should be sharing the shortfall, regardless of where the shortfall occurs).
I also think they are slowly learning how global supply chains work….
It is about time, IMO, for Boris & Co to sell some of the UK Vaccine to the EU, both to stop this nonsense and in the interest of his country, which is well in the diminishing returns of getting benefit from further vaccination and will probably gain more by helping struggling neighbours…
