Europe's Vaccine Disaster • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#361

Post by hef19898 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

QuesnayJr wrote: post #253

TheMechanist wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-sequitur, but true: this is a political hatchet job from delivered by a center-left newspaper to a center-right politician. The key to this crisis and article can be found in the middle of the article: "...von der Leyen's press department has been energetic in its defense of the Commissions actions. After all, the EU has secured rights to 2.3 billion doses of vaccine, they have pointed out, with 760 million of th…

It's not a hatchet job. The EU's handling of the vaccine has turned into an incredible disaster. Given the stakes, and the magnitude of the disaster, it's only natural the architect of that disaster get evaluated critically.

It is both. And especially the Spiegel has an issue with her. Also has a history of pushing agendas.

Personally, I blame part of the availability issues, caused by the Pfizer plant "shutdown" in Belgium, on that hatchet job. The Spiegel was among the first to use the unsatisfactory vaccine availability against von der Leyen. Fair enough, but as solution they called for increased ordering. Pressure built, frustration kicked in and then every news outlet demanded the same thing. Local politicians supported that narrative, they avoided discussions about their own fuck ups. Then the EU ordered more, demand exceeded capacity, and Pfizer reworks its plant. That resulted in even worse short term availability issues. So great job, I guess.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#362

Post by mrtksn » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #288

mrtksn wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won’t have to live in China, we will consume the vaccines like we consume the iPhones.

But you inject the vaccine into your body. Remember the melamine in baby formula scandal? To this day, many Chinese parents are still buying formula from abroad.

Remember the Nestle baby formula scandal? Fraud is not a Chinese-exclusive thing.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#363

Post by monopoledance » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

pelasaco wrote: post #208

cosmodisk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also pro-EU,remainer,etc. The problem is that the EU is the political graveyard, because countries send the most absurd people there. Not all of them,of course,but a lot. EU works when things are going slow and because of the sheer economical scale and power, everybody takes it serious when it comes to negotiations. But the EC isn't a bunch of experts on rapid situations. It's exactly the same when a French civil…

thats true. At least in Germany, you are just sent to the EU Parlament if you re not performing well in the country level.

The CDU is also the worst for trying to enforce their German politics through EU law.

I am pro-EU, but I think the authoritarian countries (Poland, Hungary) need to be kicked out or at least punished. The EU states are too diverse right now in terms of values and economy. Hard to effectively lead such a bunch.

I wish countries would send their best to the EU. We could get shit done. (tho, overall I am very happy with EU legislation)

The vaccine situation, being played by Pfizer, shows exactly that the EU needs to act more confident and show strength.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#364

Post by mtarasevicius » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

deathgrips wrote: post #319

skissane wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s due to being a federation. The US is not the only federation; Australia, for example, is one too, and just like the US, in Australia public health is primarily a state responsibility, the federal government provides most of the funding but the states own the public hospitals and control most of the operational decisions. Yet I never heard any Australian compare foreign countries to Australian states. Other fed…

Going from Idaho to New York is about the same shock as going from Idaho to Australia. The people who make this comparison are the ones who have actually been to many different American states instead of just reading about them on Reddit.

That's not the point, but even if it was, you could also say something like going from Kiryas Joel to New York City is as big of a "shock" as going from Idaho to Australia, even though these two places are in the same state and 30km away. Yeah the U.S is big and varied, but that doesn't mean that the political and societal structures are approximately the same as the EU.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#365

Post by oli5679 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

HugoDaniel wrote: post #327

HugoDaniel wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a coordinated effort, a fair comparison needs to at least take that into consideration. Even so: Why are you comparing "today" EU numbers with those of countries that started a one or two months earlier? If so, what makes you think that is a fair comparison (even disregarding the cost of the coordinated effort)? Can we compare "today" EU numbers with those of countries that have just started vaccinations? Would t…

Doesn't it sound fishy to you when Der Spiegel compares a multi-country federation with multiple-languages and cultures to a single country with 9 million habitants with known shady non-democratic practices (like selling the data of its own citizens to move ahead of the vaccination stack)?

USA has administered 28m vaccines compared to the EU's 12m, despite having a smaller population.

I don't have any info on this 'shady non-democratic practice', but the reasons I have seen for other countries getting vaccines earlier is that they committed funds to build up capacity earlier while the EU haggled on price and liability law.

I am grateful for vaccine manufacturers for working around the clock to develop, demontrate validity of and manufacture, at cost, millions of doses. Scapegoating them seems misguided to me.

If you have some evidence for this shadiness, can you share it?

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#366

Post by oli5679 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

dd_roger wrote: post #340

What's most hilarious about this situation is that the EU getting cheaper vaccines than the UK was advertised as a major "Aha you shouldn't have left, see?" a month ago, but now the UK has already vaccinated almost as many people as the entire EU. Both the EU and its member countries fucked up so badly there aren't words strong enough to describe it. Reminds me of last spring when EU countries were blocking exports o…

I agree with your interpretation but disagree with your framing. To me such expensive errors are tragic not 'hilarous'.

I am very sad about the distress and suffering this saga will cause Europeans.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#367

Post by hef19898 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

helij wrote: post #326

wrnr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way UK is to blame for this, just pure arrogance of narcissistic EU commission trowing a temper tantrum about how it can't possibly be even wrong after having grabbed all responsibility for delivering the vaccine because it was her moment to shine after the brexit, and then start pointing fingers at the first set back.

No one blamed UK. This blame thing is completely made up by UK media.

Not just UK media, German media as well. But maybe not to yhe same extent.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#368

Post by hef19898 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

lacogubik wrote: post #256

illuminati1911 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is at least partly developed (or funded) publicly. Lots of comments are complaining about how EU "paid less" for the vaccine than country XYZ, but actually EU funded AstraZeneca with hundreds of millions of euros to develop the vaccine in the first place. In any case unless AZ, EU etc. are able to come to reasonable agreement I think this might eventually lead to EU simply breaking the patent and then anyone can m…

Oxford A/Z vaccine was developed at Oxford university and AZ joined later to manufacture it (after UK gov intervened, Oxford team was originally in talks with US Merck). This article [1] has back story. EU paid millions to pharma companies (€1.78bn), that's true. However UK paid more than that(€1.9bn) and US invested even more €9bn.[1] I personally do not understand why EU bargained to start with and why it did not i…

The "at cost" thing comes from the IP agreement between the University of Oxford and AZ. The EU has nothing to do with it.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#369

Post by hef19898 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

HugoDaniel wrote: post #267

exporectomy wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response is consistent with the claim you called a lie. Adding "considering that ..." allows you to hold the EU to an arbitrarily lower standard than the other countries.

I am a EU citizen, my standards are much higher. EU didn't had to sell their citizens healthcare data to move up the stack (like Israel did). The EU negotiations with these Big Pharma corps made it wait for these 3 countries (Israel, UK and USA). Vaccinations started 1 or 2 months later in EU (depending on country). A fair comparison would be the data of today in EU with the data from 1 or 2 months ago in those count…

My understanding was, that the delay was mostly because the EU went through a fast track version of the normal certification process while the UK and the US used emergency certifications.

IMHO, it is not important who started first, but about how fast you get to 65+% of vaccinations. I don't have any issue with delays early on, but right now this mixture of political power games, blaming, panic and agenda pushing is risking the whole European vaccination campaign.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#370

Post by DrBazza » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

libertine wrote: post #338

DrBazza wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Approval doesn't matter when AZ has to build stock to meet deadlines. Basically they weren't building stock to fulfill UK orders, from EU based production. Vaccine delivery, like pretty much everything else, is just-in-time delivery. They haven't been building stocks. They've been manufacturing vaccines and shipping them straight out as they have signed contracts with many other countries other than the UK. Demand…

>Vaccine delivery, like pretty much everything else, is just-in-time delivery. They haven't been building stocks. They've been manufacturing vaccines and shipping them straight out as they have signed contracts with many other countries other than the UK. Demand is outstripping supply. Vaccine production started before any country gave any approval, it's well documented that it started in 5th JUNE 2020, so I don't qu…

I'm saying demand is outstripping supply and there aren't (huge) stockpiles of vaccines. The UK AZ plant is yet running at 100% yield according to the AZ chairman, and the EU plants are further behind. If there were 100% supply, the UK would be even further ahead in its doses-administered.

> Basically the UK took advantage of EU capacity

It's not the UK that took advantage, if the vaccines originated in an EU plant, it's that AZ chose to supply doses to the UK from the EU plant to meet its contractual 'best efforts' obligation, not the UK.

That's my point from earlier that the media are trying to draw the UK into this as some kind of post-Brexit spat with the EU, and that the UK gov. have rightly been quiet on the whole thing so far. That's also, partly, the EU's view on it as well, which is one of the reasons I suppose why they 'raided' the plants in the EU.