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Europe's Vaccine Disaster

spiegel.de

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Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#211

Post by tomgp »

Gravityloss wrote: post #88
bluGill wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a few governments can be smug about how they handled Covid, and they are all in Asia (counting New Zealand and Australia as Asia, which is hand wavy). Even those who can make such a claim are still only one mistake from it all crashing down. Europe likes to think they are doing better than the US, but the truth is they are not very different.

There are very different countries within Europe.

If you only look at European countries then there looks like there’sa lot of variance in outcome. Taking a broader view including the aforementioned Asian (plus Aus and NZ) countries Europe all looks pretty much equally bad in terms of results, even if their policy interventions have been quite different.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#212

Post by regularfry »

jackTheMan wrote: post #84
mrtksn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese and the Russian vaccines were not even considered. Now those are used in mass vaccinations, soon EU would be behind all countries but those who barely have any government at all. People don't even want to talk about that, as if those alternatives don't exists. Non-EU countries in Europe are getting them. Serbia(6.1) and Turkey(2.3) are already close to EU average(2.6) or better on the vaccination process.

I wonder if the Chinese vaccine with 50% efficiency could be used for herd immunity at all. Im not a virologyst, but the false safety of most people vaccinated with it in a country might could trigger even more death? The Chinese vaccine is not even tested above 59 years old. If the young is vaccinated and start to party etc the new more infectious variants could still spread and can reach even more elderly.

The problem is one of public confidence. 50% effectiveness would be very useful epidemiologically, but you'd still get a lot of pissed off infected people who thought they were safe. Conveying the message that we're going to stick a needle in your arm and it might not do you any good to a public that's already rife with scepticism about vaccines is a PR problem I'm very glad isn't mine to deal with.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#213

Post by pelasaco »

marcinzm wrote: post #89
InTheArena wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than anything else that appears to be lack of timing. European and USA rates have generally evened out. The virus don’t care what country you’re in.

>The virus don’t care what country you’re in. Except New Zealand. Virus really hates that place.

Taiwan too!

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#214

Post by pelasaco »

trianglem wrote: post #14
cdavid wrote: post #7

I wonder if this will become a watershed moment for the EU. I've always been an ardent believer in the European program, both for historical reasons (I have French and German grand parents), but also because for all its warts, I believed the EU had a competent bureaucracy, able to go above the pettyness of national politics. French politicians of all side love scapegoating EU for their own failures. To say that the c…

The Trump administration spewed misinformation from day one that caused massive dissonance in dealing with the problem. Saying they did better when they had literally no plan and let 400,000 people die is incredible dissembling and most likely a political statement than a logical one. They literally dissuaded people from using masks.

True, but if Americans are being vaccinated more than EU now, is mainly because of him.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#215

Post by mauritzio »

TheMechanist wrote: post #199
Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #50

Some had faith in the new mRNA technology, while others preferred to rely on more time-tested methods. Sometimes articles hide a great deal in one seemingly innocuous sentence. From what I've learned from Europeans, there's only one vaccine candidate of that nature the EU considered, a Sanofi Pasteur/GlaxoSmithKline combo, the former providing the infamous spike protein, the latter an adjuvant. Everyone expected this…

Gentlemen, the hole is due to the fact that no company has the large scale productive capacity for the newly discovered COVID-19 vaccine. Ordering earlier and paying more would just have shifted distribution around, and would not have made more doses available. Every vaccination done in the US or the UK means one less vaccine dose for Europe. And that is not "ducking responsibility", it is basic logic - as one cannot…

Well the fact that the companies own the stuff that was researched with tax payer money, which then tax payer money must buy again also doesn't help to scale. As there is no real market but just an oligopol of producers. If the formulas would be public domain, the producers can compete who is fastest and there would be much more and they still earn good money...

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#216

Post by DrBazza »

robotmay wrote: post #10

From what I've gathered (unfortunately mostly on Reddit, before this article), Ursula von der Leyen wasn't exactly fondly thought of in Germany before this and somehow keeps managing to fail upwards. Is that accurate? The utterly bonkers u-turn today was a bit of a shocker. For those that haven't seen the news, the European Commission managed to say they were effectively going to establish border controls between the…

The UK Government haven't yet made any specific statement about the vaccine export ban yet, have they? The only statement has been about the Northern Island border.

> and the UK somehow being blamed for a contractual dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca

Agreed. The only "people" that seem to be blaming the UK Gov are the media.

> Even if the UK was somehow being duplicitous here,

The AZ-UK contract will say similar things to the EU contract, and AZ are upholding their part of the contract at the moment, delivering 'best reasonable efforts', and for all countries they've signed with. They're behind on deliveries for the UK as well. The UK signed commercial contracts with AZ, Pfizer and so on, as you would normally do.

One of the problems is that the EU contract (and others, presumably) just isn't worded specifically enough. VdL and the EU are choosing to read 'best reasonable efforts' to mean different things [0], when in contract law it has a very specific and well understood meaning. As a result, VdL does not want to respect the queue of nations that have ordered before the EU that have also signed similar contracts to which AZ has similar, if not identical, contractual obligations.

If this goes to the ECJ (?), AZ vs EU, it would be surprising, and worrying if the ECJ ruled in favour of the EU. Many companies would be reluctant to sign future contracts with the EU if they thought the EU would just ride roughshod over them.

I recall reading that the supply of lipids (I'm probably wrong, I can't find the link) for the vaccine come from the UK, so if that's true, I really hope for everyone's sake, it doesn't turn into a pathetic tit-for-tat blocking of exports.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-europe...

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#217

Post by esja »

triceratops wrote: post #185
esja wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Literally no plan”? How did you arrive at that conclusion? Even the most cursory effort would tell you it’s not true.

What was the plan? Other than "let the states handle it". Which is the same as "no plan".

Right now a lot of people are getting vaccinated - an unprecedented achievement. Did that happen by magic? That’s one example that a federal plan existed, and there are plenty of others if you care to look for yourself.

It’s been 12 months now since the US banned flights from China. A lot has happened since then. People can differ on whether the federal plan was a good one (I happen to believe it wasn’t very good), but to believe there was no plan at all is just mental self-harm.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#218

Post by lovemenot »

627467 wrote: post #153

Only adjacent to this: am i wrong to think that in many places this lack of available vaccines in a predictable manner is leading to a staggered immunization and (unneeded?) delay of effective mass immunization? I mean: if you waited to stockpile large enough quantities first, you'd then be able to apply the vaccines quicker (given right logistics and man power) speeding up heard imunity. Am I wrong? Wouldn't this ac…

afaik these vaccines, once administered, have a long-lasting effect.

It shouldn't matter then whether the same amount is applied all at once or little by little. But the latter approach has the benefit of some protection earlier.

Perhaps I've misunderstood your point, but in conclusion, there should be no social health benefit in deliberately delaying vaccination.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#219

Post by saiya-jin »

outside1234 wrote: post #109
maxerickson wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU pre-ordered more Pfizer than the US. Enough for 150 million people in EU, vs enough for 50 million in the US. The US has ordered more after it was approved.

The EU did not pay as much as the US — and signed the contracts much later. Pfizer is doing the rational actor thing and, given a shortage, prioritizing their highest paying clients. There might also be verbiage in the US contract to this effect. Also, Pfizer is an American company.

Ah yes the good old covid story - sovereign states order some medicine/medical equipment from the companies, and on the airport upon sending it to the country comes US government officials with few extra (freshly printed) suitcases of money to change delivery of that order. Remember quite a few articles from spring about that. 3rd world countries having no chance of receiving what was agreed upon.

I mean I understand, when SHTF its everybody for themselves and fuck the rest. I guess in some twisted view a human nature. But I really have to severely twist it and leave any morals behind the door. Next time somebody will be praising US as some force of good in this world, well they can go fuck themselves too.

/rant

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#220

Post by sampo »

trianglem wrote: post #11
jacquesm wrote: post #5

It's not just a vaccine disaster, it is a COVID disaster. The response to COVID in most of the developed world was a completely fuck up. We are still learning lessons that should have been learned a year ago, and there are still people everywhere - here too - that believe the best way to tackle a crisis of this magnitude is to stick your head in the sand and to pretend it isn't happening. I've definitely lost the ill…

We all intrinsically knew what to expect from and how to react to a pandemic. I honestly believe intentional misinformation from the Trump administration caused the massive bifurcation in dealing with this problem with a united front. Asian countries did not have this problem, and look at how much better they are faring.

> I honestly believe intentional misinformation from the Trump administration caused the massive bifurcation in dealing with this problem with a united front.

Not everything is about America, you know? We in Europe made our mistakes on our own. Also the epidemic hit parts of Europe before it arrived to USA.

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