Graham wrote:
why is this published in English, an official language in just one member state?
Because English is kind of a universal language. Nearly everyone who is from a non-English speaking country who learns a second language will learn English, so English still has by a vast margin, in the EU, the most people who are capable of reading the document. This will remain true for the forseeable future, to the chagrin of the French.
English holds the position that the creators of Esperanto hoped that Esperanto would fill. Even if the EU had no English native speaking countries, they’d likely still publish in English because of its universal language status.
Graham wrote:
Yes the AZ vaccine was the largest order (probably because of the predicted vaccine nationalism – they needed one they had a degree of control over – and also because it was likely the one that the people making the decision had the best intelligence on) but without AZ it’s still 257m doses – almost 4x the population.
That’s true, but if you look at the others, only the Pfizer & Moderna are approved yet. So the UK would have a much smaller vaccine availability at present had the Ox/AZ one not worked out. Graham wrote:
The more I examine the issue, the more I conclude that most European governments (including the UK) haven’t done anything materially differently that accounts for the different death rates.
The UK was much slower to issue restrictions, and never had the type of restrictions we’ve had. Whether that would have made any difference is of course up for debate. But it took a visit to hospital, before Boris saw the light.
Graham wrote:
For any EU country to hit similar predictions (including the Irish prediction you refer to) requires a very considerable uptick in the run rate, and soon.
Yes. That uptick in the run rate is exactly what they government here are saying is about to happen. Of course it might be a ‘government promise’ that never happens, but they would have to be fools to make sure a promise now, when they have good visibility on the vaccine supply for the next few months.
Incidentally, I think we’ll see differences in EU country vaccine rates. Not all countries are getting the same number of the same vaccines. Apparently the EU secured deals with the suppliers. Once the deals were secured, they then offered each country a share of each vaccine based on their population. Ireland took it’s full share of each vaccine. However not every country did. Some took reduced amounts of the more expensive vaccines, placing their bets on the cheaper Ox/AZ vaccine. Then those vaccines what weren’t taken up by some countries were offer to the other countries. Some (if I remember correctly, including Demark & German) took some of the spare ones. This was all mid last year, so before the approval order became clear. So we’ll see different rollouts in different countries.
Had the Ox/AZ one turned out not to work, the UK would be in a much more difficult position.
Possibly Pfizer too? Pfizer would have had UK’s order (for say 120M doses) 3m before anybody else’s. I reckon they would have honoured UK’s contract correctly. Well, after delivering America’s orders regardless of whether they came later 
dublinpilot wrote:
That’s true, but if you look at the others, only the Pfizer & Moderna are approved yet. So the UK would have a much smaller vaccine availability at present had the Ox/AZ one not worked out.
Same applies to the EU, does it not? Yes the EU has a bigger Pfizer order (although it is hard to establish what they are really going to get in a meaningful time frame – the claim is ‘up to’ 600m but perhaps 50%+ of that will not be anytime soon) but then you have similar dependence. If Pfizer had not worked, etc.
dublinpilot wrote:
The UK was much slower to issue restrictions
I don’t think it’s material in terms of the death rate. In any case this was, as many of us have pointed out, because the UK has a fundamentally different attitude to personal freedoms, restrictions and the role of the state than other European countries, many of which have had ‘non-free’ existence if not quite in living memory then not far off. The UK govt knew it had a small window of compliance (compliance is very poor now) and couldn’t afford to jump in early. In any case, it’s easy to be wise after the event.
dublinpilot wrote:
But it took a visit to hospital, before Boris saw the light.
There is little to suggest Johnson’s approach was changed by his trip to hospital. He continued to attract much criticism for supposedly lax measures well after his brush with the virus, and his apparently-cautious approach now is largely a strategy to avoid taking what are evidently political decisions (acceptable death rates, cost vs benefits) by pretending they are scientific ones and out of his hands.
dublinpilot wrote:
and never had the type of restrictions we’ve had.
Really? We have a complete stay at home order in place. You cannot leave home, except for certain reasons. What does Ireland (or other countries) have on top of this?
dublinpilot wrote:
Yes. That uptick in the run rate is exactly what they government here are saying is about to happen. Of course it might be a ‘government promise’ that never happens, but they would have to be fools to make sure a promise now, when they have good visibility on the vaccine supply for the next few months.
It would need to be an enormous uptick (4-5x present rate at least) and very soon. The first step is probably to start using the AZ vaccine that is sitting around. Who’d have thought that the demand management exercise would bite them on the arse?
dublinpilot wrote:
Incidentally, I think we’ll see differences in EU country vaccine rates.
Performance to date is remarkably consistent. EU average is 7.83 doses per 100 head of population, with the lowest and the highest ~ 1 either side. Ireland is one of the highest.
Graham wrote:
Same applies to the EU, does it not?
Yes, absolutely. I think you are too stuck on a nationalist view (as many UK posters seem to be), and judging every statement through the eyes of “UK is great” or “UK is terrible”. I made no such statement. The EU would have just as much of a problem. Indeed some states which relied mainly on the OX/AZ vaccine have that problem now due to the low supplies of it. The point I was making was about politicians in general, and how they gambled everything on a vaccine, and where we’d be if the vaccines didn’t work, work as effectively, or took much longer.
Graham wrote:
Really? We have a complete stay at home order in place. You cannot leave home, except for certain reasons. What does Ireland (or other countries) have on top of this?
We’ve had a 2km from home restriction for exercise at the peak. We brought in the lockdown earlier, our restaurants and cafés were closed, when yours seemed to be open. Things like Cheltenham went ahead.
Graham wrote:
The first step is probably to start using the AZ vaccine that is sitting around.
This again is fake news. There is zero AZ vaccine sitting around in Ireland, no matter how many times you keep saying it. Pfizer is being given to our nursing home residents (already done) and over 85’s at present, and over 70s next week. The AZ is being given to healthcare workers. All vaccines received are being given out as fast as we are receiving them. Indeed, AZ failed to deliver the (revised) promised schedule last week, which set us back a bit, but they say they’ll make that up this week.
dublinpilot wrote:
We’ve had a 2km from home restriction for exercise at the peak
Which I think is unnecessary and a bit cruel to be honest. I think the 2km exercise restriction is one of those things that is mistaken for “good” regulations, when in reality it’s merely burdensome. It’s been known from pretty early on that outdoor exercise presents a very low risk.
Peter wrote:
As per the article I posted above, probably the population health is a big factor there. Vietnam did even better…
How would you measure population health? You could use at life expectancy as a proxy but then the UK is only slightly worse than Sweden while Italy and Spain are better.
Peter wrote:
Possibly Pfizer too? Pfizer would have had UK’s order (for say 120M doses) 3m before anybody else’s. I reckon they would have honoured UK’s contract correctly. Well, after delivering America’s orders regardless of whether they came later
You think Pfizer would have delivered more to the UK than they are doing at present, if the Ox/Az failed? If so, why aren’t they delivering that extra amount at present? The UK could, as you pointed out just yesterday, go faster if it could get more supply. I find it hard to believe that Pfizer would deliver more to the UK if Ox/Az failed.
alioth wrote:
Which I think is unnecessary and a bit cruel to be honest. I think the 2km exercise restriction is one of those things that is mistaken for “good” regulations, when in reality it’s merely burdensome. It’s been known from pretty early on that outdoor exercise presents a very low risk.
There is a lot about restrictions that are a bit cruel. The purpose of that one was to stop different areas cross infecting one another. In the end, I don’t think you really need to travel more than 2km to do your exercise. But it did indeed feel very restrictive.
We’re currently on a 5km restriction for exercise, and it’s likely, but not certain to revert to travel within your county this time next month.
dublinpilot wrote:
This again is fake news. There is zero AZ vaccine sitting around in Ireland, no matter how many times you keep saying it.
I didn’t say it was sitting around in Ireland (and never have, so not sure where the ‘how many times’ comes from). My apologies if that was your inference.
It’s been sitting around principally in Germany and a few other EU countries as I understand it.
dublinpilot wrote:
Things like Cheltenham went ahead.
There would have been uproar in Ireland if it hadn’t! ;-)
More seriously, I don’t believe those things you mention are material. There is so much noise in the data, and so many fundamental unknowns, that no-one can possibly point to closing XYZ on ABC date as making a difference. The only European country to materially do things differently, as far as I’m concerned, is Sweden. Everyone else locked down, with differences in the details and dates that are unlikely to make much of a difference overall.
I don’t think Ireland did the AZ slagging-off. They are a whole lot more pragmatic.
Many of the restrictions are very obviously nothing to do with preventing virus spread. They are wholly to do with preventing abusive interpretations (which cannot be prevented because there is no other practical way to frame the legislation) and which would then result in close proximity crowds which would spread the virus.
Practically all limits on outdoor meeting are to prevent large crowds forming.
Same with takeaways being allowed but not if they sell alcohol; again to prevent large crowds forming.
One example of an abusive interpretation is the “religious” wedding; ultra orthodox Jewish ones have been in the headlines with 150-400 (depending on which report you believe; but with one big one they scattered when the police came and only 150 were found) guest ones. These people have many lawyers among them and they know exactly what they are doing. The current regs, out of political necessity, allow unlimited crowds for worship, subject only to social distancing of 2m (which is unenforceable indoors, but Bismarck had the right phrase for that). So, if you say a wedding involves “worship”, you can have any size you want. They knew it would be controversial, and illegal once they started doing close-up dancing etc, so when they hired a school building they blanked out the windows, and the only clue was in all the cars parked outside. There is still no way to stop this. The police fined the organisers but those will probably fail in court. 2/3 of that community test positive for antibodies now, and they had many deaths.
In a free country, there is only so much one can do.
