As far as I understand it, the EU member states are not generally short on doses, more on distribution and other regulatory issues. If they pause AZ, they can use something else which is already being manufactured right now, and likely within the EU, quelle surprise. I would not be surprised if this is simply a political and economic snub from the EU, one of very many the UK can expect over the coming decades. The UK…
You understand it incorrectly. EU vaccination is largely constrained by doses. The exception is AZ, which in some countries has already seen people declining it, but AZ is currently a tiny portion of the EU's available vaccines due to AZ's failure to deliver. This will indeed delay things more if it isn't sorted out quickly (but possibly not THAT much more, because AZ is so behind on deliveries).
Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
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Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#172You do have to wonder if some of this is politically driven. Germany are losing hundreds of life's a day, while in the meantime the UK has administrated 23 million doses (not sure the ratio of those that were AstraZeneca) and not recorded a single fatality or adverse reaction and are seeing infection rates / deaths drop. I can understand caution under normal circumstances, but nothing is normal right now.
It could also be driven by money. The alternative Pzifer jab is 10-20 times as expensive. That is a lot money, some of which may find its way to work the media and the decision makers.
https://www.ft.com/content/c474f9e1-8807-4e57-9c79-6f4af145b...
AstraZeneca vaccine document shows limit of no-profit pledge
Company has right under contract to declare pandemic over by July 2021
Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you botch acquiring something being developed and made in own country?
Because it is not made in Germany. Pfizer is responsible for producing it and their plants are primarily in the US.
Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed they promised 120M doses in Q1 and so far delivered 12.3M, out of which about 70% has been administered. While delivering basically exactly as promised to the UK and having a stockpile of 30M doses waiting in a warehouse in the US because they paid a higher per dose price.
I wouldn't use the word "promised" here. The contract , which is public, mentions "Best effort" deliveries only. The promised word is used to by EU officials who made a mess out of it and in articles for views.
There is definetly a couple of case studies for a lot of discipline in that. Besides virology, epidemiology or medcine.
Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they did not do everything they can. They did not expedite AZ vaccine approval, they are messing up the rollout, they tried to negotiate prices instead of securing vaccines at all costs. They made a whole theatre about AZ deliveries and almost created an international crisis around Ireland..but no, no political aspect to it, none at all.. I don't think they are trying to get revenge. They are trying to cover for…
so how does further slowing vaccine progress, making it even less likely they'll meet the adjusted goals and anouncements, "cover for their failings", especially if there is a good chance it'll turn out it was unnecessary? At least right now people's reaction for sure isn't "oh too bad then, not your fault".
Goals and announcements have already been missed, and it turning out to be unnecessary can be muddied, or buried.
Assuming this is indeed politics, there are a lot of positives to this type of move in an already shit situation.
Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#176Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Casual estimates are at 1700/week. https://mobile.twitter.com/politicsforali/status/13714790084...
So you are saying that no one would die in Germany if the vaccine would not be temporarily suspended? That's a bit simplistic. Not to mention that we go so far as to consider that every life is precious and we need to fight for every single COVID patient, but the people that could be affected by this are just statistically insignificant.
We who? If you're talking about healthcare the chances of survival are constantly moderated by various policies ( both government and private ) against the money spent.
Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#178The pandemic has made me believe we need to be greater consiquentalists in our polices. It's pretty obvious that on the whole the AstraZeneca vax will save more people than are killed from the side effects. We don't not live in a 0 risk existence.
Ummmm....we can wait and get another vaccine? The vaccine is done on HEALTHY people, we're not talking about meds on terminal stage cancer patients with nothing to lose.
Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because one "low" is few orders of magnitude lower than other "low".
Right, but that's assuming you get the virus; to properly compare it you have to factor the chance you contract the virus in the first place. I'm not saying the math works out better, I haven't done it myself, but I'd bet most people would choose to try to avoid contracting
Re: Germany pauses AstraZeneca vaccinations as a 'precaution'
#180Looks like this may be a bit more relevant than many of the snarky comments would suggest - the relevant German authority on this said that they have seen a unexpected increase in a specific type of blood clotting issue that usually is very rare: https://www.pei.de/DE/newsroom/hp-meldungen/2021/210315-voru...