Does anyone know why all of the geopolitical discourse in the UK and Europe has been around arguing over a small supply, rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?
EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
51–60 of 116 posts
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion, the media and European politicians are responsible for this vaccine skepticism. You reap what you sow. The politicians banned the vaccine despite there not being scientific evidence to suggest that was a reasonable choice. The media in Europe hyped this up massively. In the UK, neither of these things happened, and despite there being some degree of skepticism, the vast majority of people are still wil…
Under 30s in UK are not recommended AZ jab Its same in other countries ranging from no restriction to restriction being to anything up to under 60s not recommended is not same as "banned" stop reading UK tabloids.
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#53There's almost no "we shall fight them on the beaches" or "not because they are easy but because they are hard" and way more process, lawsuits, committees, etc. As it turns out, you need some charisma and vision to effectively do things.
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#54Sorry if this is considered off-topic, but I mus thave surely missed something about why AstraZeneca is seemingly the only choice on the vaccine market. I am German, we developed the Pfizer vaccine, but there is _no_ news about it, it seems like the AZ vaccine is the only option. Is it a case that Pfizer wasn't viable, wasn't used here, or only made lucrative contracts with other countries, or is it being used, quiet…
Today’s immigrants are illegally crossing borders and refusing to register at the first non-hostile country. They are not using official channels, or even legal systems.
I’d just like to point out that difference since you bought the racism card into the debate competely unnecessarily.
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#55The EU needs to focus on getting more vaccines. I would suggest to start trail/approval processes for the vaccines from Russia and China. In particular China has shown the capacity and a willingness to export.
So let's eat our pride and focus on getting the pandemic under control.
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me neither, but I find it hard to believe that it is more difficult than remaining stuck in the pandemic.
As far as I know, Germany helped BioNtech with their new plant but even then it took at least half a year to get that going. And that was despite the fact that they could buy and adapt it instead of building it from scratch. For example, in software, maybe it takes a single developer a year to build a compiler for some advanced language and we can speed it up to 3 months by adding some people. But could we get to a w…
I was referring more to the discourse, which seems to be about heightening nationalistic sentiments by pitting governments against each other fighting over a small stockpile, rather than highlighting the progress/pitfalls/ongoing support needs of collaborative initiatives to provide scaled solutions.
But maybe this is just a sign that I need to broaden my media inputs, always a good thing to do.
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#57Does anyone know why all of the geopolitical discourse in the UK and Europe has been around arguing over a small supply, rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?
But the thing is: while EU agencies like the EMA are involved in these processes, and also monetary grants to finance production increases have been provided in several cases, the EU has a limited number of actions available to "increase manufacturing capacity", especially in the short term (the new BioNTech plant for example was already bought in September, so it took over half a year to get it retrofitted for production). We cannot simply - like the US or UK - declare that everything produced within the EU stays within the EU, with no exceptions. Or well, technically we could, and that would certainly increase the supply in the EU in the short term, but that would have geopolitical repercussions that might in the worst case damage the EU's vaccine production in the long term (because it is at least partially dependent on pre-products sourced from outside the EU), but will for sure cause a lot of damage in international relations. The EU is effectively the world's biggest vaccine exporter in terms of doses, especially when you focus on the mRNA vaccines which have the highest efficacy and least complications and are thus the most sought-after. Limited to just that class of vaccines, the EU even is the single relevant source right now.
The epic fuck-up of the EU body that was responsible for ordering the vaccines in the first place might in the end turn out to be a bad thing for us EU citizens because of slower vaccination, but a good thing for geopolitical relations/tensions as a whole. That's because this fuck-up kind of deters the EU from taking the same isolationist "our citizens first" stance that the US took - politically such a move would now clearly be regarded as a cheap and, most importantly, illegitimate attempt to fix the failure of negotiating proper and broad supply contracts with manufacturers using brute political force, and that effectively stops the EU from taking this step, even if it would technically be a possibility. As a result, all the countries in the world without significant mRNA vaccine production capabilities on their territories at least have realistic access to a single source for their imports, as long as they negotiated supply contracts with the manufacturers early enough. This situation has for example been the key enabler for the huge success of the Israeli's highly acclaimed vaccination campaign, which was powered by vaccine supply from Europe.
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#58> the point of the legal proceedings is to make it mandatory for AstraZeneca to provide the doses set out in its EU contract The point of a contract is always that fulfilling the contract is mandatory. That said, legal proceedings won't make anything go faster any more than other attempts at what sounds like plan economy.
I don't understand how you could possibly call this an attempt at plan economy, unless you consider all solicitation of a product by a government to be plan economy? How is this fundamentally any different from the US's purchasing of doses from BioNTech/Pfizer? I'm sure the US would take legal action against Pfizer if they weren't delivering doses according to the agreement?
It isn't. It's just that "euroskeptics" will distort arguments for the sole purpose of hating and dividing
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but if anything should happen to you because of a non-recommended vaccine you are on your own for treatment and disability pay.
in the US maybe?
Don't know about the US situation.
Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Under 30s in UK are not recommended AZ jab Its same in other countries ranging from no restriction to restriction being to anything up to under 60s not recommended is not same as "banned" stop reading UK tabloids.
Hang on, I don’t think it’s “not recommended” to under 30s. I think under 30s are just given the choice of an alternative vaccine, if they’d like it. In many EU countries, the vaccine was banned for large segments of the population for extended periods of time.
Also happened in Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Norway, Iceland, and some African countries.