The COVID-2019 Thread

[harrybarracuda]

Plus the British did far more to bankroll vaccine development than those useless c u n t s. They should be ashamed of themselves instead of spitting their little eurotrash dummies.

[strigils]

The protocol is always problematic, lets see what Pres Biden has to say about this move. The EU has used the border as a pawn all along.

Brexit: EU introduces controls on vaccines to NI

Brexit: EU introduces controls on vaccines to NI - BBC News


The EU is introducing controls on vaccines made in the block, including to Northern Ireland, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.

Under the Brexit deal, all products should be exported from the EU to Northern Ireland without checks.

But the EU believed this could be used to circumvent export controls, with NI becoming a backdoor to the wider UK.

DUP leader Arlene Foster described the move as "an incredible act of hostility" by the EU.

The EU invoked Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol which allows parts of the deal to be unilaterally overridden.

In a new regulation the European Commission states: "This is justified as a safeguard measure pursuant to Article 16 of that Protocol in order to avert serious societal difficulties due to a lack of supply threatening to disturb the orderly implementation of the vaccination campaigns in the Member States."

The Northern Ireland Protocol is a special deal to prevent the re-emergence of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed in the original withdrawal agreement, is essentially a safeguard that would allow the UK or EU to act unilaterally if measures imposed as a result of the protocol are deemed to be causing "serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties".

This is a politically explosive move by the European Commission.

Northern Ireland's unionist politicians have been agitating for the Article 16 emergency brake to be used to reduce checks and controls on goods crossing the new Irish Sea border.

Some of them see it as a pathway to unravelling the whole Northern Ireland Brexit deal.

The UK government told unionists they would be prepared to use Article 16 but made obvious they were nowhere near the threshold for doing so.

But now the Commission has undermined the government's 'Keep calm and carry on' approach.

Those parties who support the Northern Ireland deal have reacted with dismay.

[Joe 90]

The bottom line is that the EU are fvcked without the UK in so many ways,yet it doesn't stop them from trying to bully and take all the time.

[strigils]

Not sure if the UK will hit target

[strigils]

At this rate we are looking at 7 months...ish and vaccine supply dependent obv

[Joe 90]

Didn't take long for the EU to start back pedaling.

The EU has reversed its decision to temporarily override part of the Brexit deal amid an ongoing row over Covid vaccine supplies.

[Klondyke]

Covid: AstraZeneca contract must be published, says European Commission chief

Why the people always complain? Can't they read?

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/fi...r-contract.pdf

[panama hat]

Why the people always complain?

They can't in Russia, nor China

[Troy]

Didn't take long for the EU to start back pedaling.

The EU has reversed its decision to temporarily override part of the Brexit deal amid an ongoing row over Covid vaccine supplies.

It was a major mistake to invoke Article 16 over this issue. I didn't even see from the published contract where the EU could claim unfair treatment of delivery.

EU looking very petulant.

[strigils]

EU looking very petulant.

I just think they have been on the back foot over the whole vaccine issue from day one.

The UK hasn't managed the COVID response well and has not managed to balance the economic/health conundrum although tbf i think behind the scenes the Sage team and other "So called" expert advisors have probably contributed to the continued flip flopping.

Whatever the outcome the effects of this, approaching one year on will be felt for a long time both economically and with each nations health through what is probably going to be higher general mortality rates driven by people not getting treatment for other health conditions.

No one is coming out a winner.

[cyrille]

No one is coming out a winner.

The UK is numerically the biggest loser though, and from Cummings cross country eye test to bojo's flip flopping over Christmas, this government has lurched from one fcuk up to the next.

Johnson's performance has been utterly pathetic.

[strigils]

Macron is obviously taking potshots as both his vaccine response and development in France have been ineffectual, poor chap its going to take a miracle for him to get re-elected next year.

Macron claims Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine ‘quasi-ineffective’ on older people


French president criticises UK’s rollout strategy amid row over EU delay

Emmanuel Macron claimed that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was "quasi-ineffective" for over-65s, just hours before it was approved for use on all adults in the EU.

In a press briefing in Paris on Friday afternoon, the French president said the jab “doesn't work the way we were expecting to”.

He also appeared to criticise the UK’s vaccine rollout strategy, which has so far resulted in more people being given a first dose than any other European country.

Mr Macron said: “The goal is not to have the biggest number of first injections ... When you have all the medical agencies and the industrialists who say you need two injections for it to work, a maximum of 28 days apart, which is the case with Pfizer/BioNTech; and you have countries whose vaccine strategy is to only administer one jab, I’m not sure that it’s very serious.”

His comments, reported by Politico, are likely to reignite tensions between the EU and UK over the effectiveness of the Oxford vaccine, after German media reports wrongly suggested its efficacy for those aged over 65 could be as low as 8 per cent.

Germany’s vaccine committee later concluded that a lack of sufficient data meant the jab should only be given to people aged 18-64.

The EMA added that “protection is expected, given that an immune response is seen in this age group and based on experience with other vaccines”.

Meanwhile, the European Commission confirmed that it was imposing export controls on vaccines made in the EU following a row with AstraZeneca over deliveries. The UK-based pharmaceutical firm has reduced its promised deliveries of 80 million doses by the end of March to 31 million doses.

Under the controls, member states will be able to block the export of vaccines made in their countries, including supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab produced in Belgium.

Macron claims Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine ‘quasi-ineffective’ on older people | The Independent

[taxexile]

The UK’s vaccine success will allow us to be generous to a failing EU.

The nimble approach of the UK's Vaccine Task Force compares favourably to that of the lumbering EU

CHARLES MOORE
29 January 2021 • 9:30pm

On May 6 last year, Boris Johnson rang Kate Bingham and asked her to head the Vaccine Task Force (VTF), which he and colleagues had just devised. Its main purpose was to stop people dying, he told her. It would seek, first, full protection for UK citizens; second, international cooperation to provide vaccines for people in poorer countries everywhere; third, an infrastructure against future pandemics.

So described, this sounds a straightforwardly reasonable thing to do. But in fact it was daring and controversial. Normally – and, quite often, rightly – such things work through Whitehall’s slow administrative processes, and are merely advisory. The VTF was explicitly different. Because of the virus’s pervasive threat to life, speed was of the essence.

Normally, too, someone like Ms Bingham could not just walk in and take charge. She is, by trade, a venture capitalist in the field of pharmaceuticals, with 30 years’ experience. Potential conflicts of interest would have had to be argued over for months.

But the Government, 10 Downing Street, and its Policy Unit, still wrestling with the huge difficulties over getting PPE and providing testing, wanted a team that knew the industry whose services they sought. Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, who has senior private-sector experience, pushed the Task Force idea very hard. All realised that only vaccine procurement could achieve recovery from Covid. They understood the need to spread the risk of failure by approaching numerous providers.

At this stage (April), some in government thought Britain would be better off sharing EU vaccine procurement. They sought safety in the enormous buying power of 27 nations combined. They were overruled, however. Boris and co foresaw the literally life-sapping slowness of the EU system. The majority feared indecision caused by the constant clash within the bloc between those who want Brussels to lead and those who want more decisions made by individual member states.

Yesterday, I rang Sir Richard Sykes, the biochemist and former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline. In June and December last year, he reported on the VTF’s work. He was pleased with what he found. The problem with the EU, he says, is that “a big bureaucratic machine cannot deal with a serious, urgent problem when you’re confronting a plague. When 27 people start arguing, it’s not a pretty sight.”

Ms Bingham was empowered to do what the entire European Union was not doing. She could form her own team of business executives, scientists, military procurement experts, ex-diplomats and career civil servants. She could use her unique industry contacts to build up the right portfolio of vaccines and secure the right terms. Unlike in contracts later negotiated by the European Commission, she was not instructed to drive the toughest financial bargain, but to focus on delivery and use the full range of differing technologies. Her team had to get enough doses – indeed, more than enough – fast enough. Britain bought about 360 million, which works out at more than seven per adult. In ordering, the team identified the “front-runners” who were likely to get their vaccines out first. It decided that Pfizer-BioNtech and Oxford-Astra-Zeneca were ahead, so it bought them early and big.

This bet proved correct. In an article in the Lancet at the end of October, Ms Bingham set out what the VTF was trying to do, given that “No-one has ever done mass vaccination of adults anywhere in the world before.” As she puts it in conversation today, “Growing mammalian cells doesn’t happen like punching out face-masks.” At the time of her article, she had, as she admitted, no proof of a successful vaccine; yet anyone reading the piece now will see that the plans she set out have borne fruit. Three weeks after the Lancet piece, came what she describes as “the incredible – beyond incredible – day,” when Pfizer-BioNtech announced the over 90 per cent success of their “primary efficacy analysis”. Help was on the way, and Britain had secured a good share of it.

AnThis is where the much-used word “nimble” was so important. Britain has an excellent science base, especially in life sciences, but is a relatively small market. It had to make itself useful to the suppliers it was courting. That is why the VTF harnessed our tradition of big clinical trials. Here the vast size of the NHS, often a handicap in other fields, offers the necessary scale. On Thursday, it was announced that the American Novavax vaccine works. Because we had offered large-scale clinical trials of that vaccine long before these were available in the United States, Britain has already secured 60 million Novavax doses.

Similarly, support for vaccine manufacturing was deployed fast. The Novavax vaccine will soon start production in Stockton-on-Tees. In Scotland, Valneva, a French company, has been helped to set up a factory for “whole-vial based” vaccines. In the case of the Oxford vaccine, government encouragement went back several years. This was helpful in persuading AstraZeneca, who had never before produced vaccines, to grasp the chance. The Oxford BioMedica plant is the most productive of all those manufacturing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. other incentive the Government offered was to indemnify the vaccine manufacturers against liability. Again, the EU left this very late.

As the above shows, this is not a story of the “vaccine nationalism” of which Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, rightly warns. The VTF has drawn on scientific and commercial work across the globe, employing, in every case except China, personal contacts with the companies involved. It has also put more government money (£548 million) into COVAX, the organisation procuring vaccines for developing countries, than any other nation. Before Christmas, a team from Oxford-BioMedica, headed by VTF’s manufacturing lead, Ian McCubbin, went quietly out to the Dutch plant trying to produce the AZ vaccine to help sort out problems there. These are not the actions of nationalist power.

By contrast, the unhappy EU, theoretically committed to internationalism, now makes protectionist noises against exporting vaccines beyond its boundaries. Desperate for more AstraZeneca vaccines which they failed to tie down in negotiations, European leaders have taken to insulting the company which they so badly need, casting doubt on its vaccine’s efficacy even as their regulators approve it, and airing contractual disputes. Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, now advocates legal interventions to ensure vaccine supplies. This is the same Charles Michel who earlier wrote in his proposal for an international treaty to fight pandemics, that “To prevent disruptions in global supply chains, export restrictions for essential medical supplies should be avoided and tariffs and trade barriers on essential goods should be reduced or removed.”

Many Leave supporters will now be saying “I told you so”. The facts suggest they are right, but the tone is wrong. Obviously the first part of Boris’s instruction to Kate Bingham last May comes first: nothing should compromise the promise to vaccinate all our adult citizens as fast as possible. But it would also be good to do everything we can to help less fortunate countries. No nation will really get over Covid if its neighbours still have it. It must be in our interest to do what we can to help European vaccine production and supply. Perhaps the time is not far off when, because we are now an independent country which can make up its own mind to act, we shall have more vaccines than we need. If that happens, we should be generous. The world will notice our example.
The UK’s vaccine success will allow us to be generous to a failing EU

yet again, brussels shows that when it doesn't get its own way, when it has to confront its own failures, like a moody, spoilt and self entitled adolescent it resorts to bullying and coercion in order to deflect from its inadequacies.

their treatment of the r.o.i. in this, by invoking article 16 of the protocol without consultation with either the uk pm or the taoiseach was almost trumpian in its arrogance and conceit, and macrons ill advised, inaccurate and petulant outbursts yesterday are just further proof of their frustration at being outplayed in the vaccination stakes.

in 5 years time, when the uk has adjusted to the present temporary trading difficulties brought on by brexit, even the hardiest and stubbornest remainers will come to see the wisdom of brexit.

its a long game.

[lom]

His comments, reported by Politico, are likely to reignite tensions between the EU and UK over the effectiveness of the Oxford vaccine, after German media reports wrongly suggested its efficacy for those aged over 65 could be as low as 8 per cent.

Germany’s vaccine committee later concluded that a lack of sufficient data meant the jab should only be given to people aged 18-64.

makes me wonder what happens inside the human body between it is 64 and 65 years old.

[taxexile]

Thank God they weren't in charge! As the UK built its vaccine triumph, Tory-hating politicians and activists denounced it as an anti-EU plot... GUY ADAMS lays bare the vicious campaign

By GUY ADAMS FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 22:00, 29 January 2021 | UPDATED: 01:32, 30 January 2021


Back in July, Boris Johnson turned down an invitation for Britain to join the EU's Covid vaccine scheme, taking the view that we'd be better off sourcing our own.

Cue the most almighty stink, with Opposition politicians falling over one another to score cheap points.

Catherine West, Labour's shadow minister for Europe, dubbed the decision 'dumb and dumber'. Her colleague, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, accused the Government of 'yet again putting ideology before saving lives'.


The Lib Dems' then leadership contender Layla Moran claimed the wicked Tories were favouring 'Brexit over vaccines', while the party's Health spokesperson Munira Wilson declared this 'stubborn unwillingness to work with the EU' was 'unforgivable'.

The Guardian promptly rose to the bait, using Wilson's remarks to justify the headline 'UK plan to shun vaccine scheme 'unforgivable', say critics'.

Then, in the sewer of grievance that is social media, a host of highly influential 'Remainiacs' decided it was actually part of a sinister plan by Mr Johnson to murder his own citizens by failing to inoculate them.

David Schneider, the Left-wing comedian, to this end told his 500,000 followers we were witnessing 'this week's episode of Who Cares if You Die as Long as we Brexit', adding that it showed Brexit to be a 'death cult'.

Activist Bianca Jagger reckoned the decision was one of several that had 'endangered people's lives'.



James Felton, a comedy writer for The Guardian and BBC, accused the evil PM of 'killing your own citizens to own the EU'.

Six months on and we can all see exactly how these fanciful predictions panned out.

For in reality, the Government's decision to forgo the EU's hapless procurement vaccine scheme was neither stupid, nor evil. Instead, it has proven to be little short of a triumph. Britain now leads not just Europe but almost the entire developed world in inoculating its citizens.

As of today, we have administered about 8.2 million jabs, with approximately 12 per cent of the country having rolled up their collective sleeves.

Had we followed the advice of Labour and Lib Dem MPs, as well as the frothing keyboard warriors quoted above, we'd be in a similarly hopeless position to France or Germany, who've managed to give doses to just over three million between them, at a rate that equates to roughly a sixth of the UK's.

Indeed, across the EU, a mere 2.5 per cent of citizens have, so far, been given a vaccine. And, in some corners (such as Madrid, Paris and Lisbon), programmes have been temporarily suspended, for lack of supplies.



At this rate, it will be 2024 before our neighbours hit the 70-75 per cent figure scientists regard necessary to achieve herd immunity.

We, by contrast, are on course to get there by the summer, having met a target to vaccinate the most vulnerable within a fortnight.

By then, an extra 60 million doses with a 'Made in Britain' stamp will be winging their way to patients, thanks to Thursday's news that Novavax's vaccine has become the fourth jab to complete successful Phase III trials in the UK, clearing the way for approval in weeks.

And yesterday, it emerged a fifth vaccine, from U.S. firm Johnson & Johnson, of which we've ordered 30 million doses, will be rolled out this summer.

So have the blowhards who were so critical of Mr Johnson's decision to sidestep the EU scheme issued apologies? Of course not!

Perhaps Catherine West, Munira Wilson, or the Left-wing grievance merchants who used Twitter to accuse the Prime Minister of murder think their epic misjudgment will be quietly forgotten.

If so, they are sorely mistaken. For when historians pore over the Covid pandemic, they will surely conclude this is one area where his otherwise much-maligned Government took on the cynics and naysayers and, as the old saying goes, knocked it out of the park.

Our vaccine scheme is, in fact, a historic success story that will provide not just a literal shot in the arm to millions of Britons, but a proverbial one to our post-Brexit pharmaceutical and biotech industries, as well as our standing on the international stage.



This was no happy accident. For it stemmed from a series of crucial decisions that were taken under immense pressure, often in the face of fierce and obstructive opposition from opportunistic political opponents.

Among the perhaps unlikely heroes of this narrative are Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Business Secretary Alok Sharma.

However, the most important was almost certainly Kate Bingham, the former head of Britain's vaccine taskforce.

Although highly qualified for the job, as one of the nation's foremost experts in life science, she faced a campaign of misogynistic criticism from Left-wing critics who claimed she'd been offered the (unpaid) role only because her husband, Jesse Norman, is a Tory MP.

The seeds of Britain's success were sown back in March, when news reached the Government that an Oxford University team led by Professor Sir John Bell was about to sign a deal to develop a vaccine with U.S. drugs giant Merck.

On paper, it seemed like a solid idea. But when Mr Hancock began to explore the details of the proposal, a potential pitfall emerged. Namely: in the event of Merck developing a successful product, then President Donald Trump might intervene to force the firm to funnel supplies to the U.S.

The Health Secretary therefore demanded written assurance that British supplies would be guaranteed. When none was forthcoming, he vetoed the deal and instead steered Oxford towards a union with British firm AstraZeneca.

Making this decision may, with hindsight, seem straightforward. But Mr Hancock was effectively gambling huge public resources on the early research and development of a product that had at least a sporting chance of proving useless. Had AstraZeneca's drug failed, but Merck's succeeded, the criticism would have been absolutely remorseless.

Raising the stakes on the political front was the fact vaccine development was already a hot potato.

As early as mid-March, The Observer led with an article that carried the provocative headline 'Brexit means coronavirus vaccine will be slower to reach UK'.

The report was based on a comment article written for the paper by what it dubbed a trio of eminent 'academics and lawyers' led by one Professor Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In an analysis which would later prove wrong on almost every count, these alleged 'experts' sought to politicise the Covid debate by arguing that 'Boris Johnson's determination to go it alone, free of EU regulation after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it'.

In fact, the opposite occurred. But the provocative front-page was widely shared by Left-wing propagandists, from BBC historian Greg Jenner and tub-thumping radio host James O'Brien, to SNP MPs Paul Monaghan and Martyn Day, and Labour's Corbynite MP Tulip Siddiq. Former Labour MEP and Remain campaigner Seb Dance declared that the newspaper's report proved Brexit should be cancelled, or at least postponed, saying: 'This alone should be reason enough to delay the transition.'

(Professor McKee later joined 'Independent SAGE', the cabal of Left-wing scientists devoted to criticising the Government's handling of Covid, where he continues offering 'expert' takes, almost invariably hostile to Mr Johnson.)

The Government's next crucial decision was appointing the aforementioned Ms Bingham to head a 'taskforce' to co-ordinate vaccine development and also ensure that when a viable one became available, it could be produced in vast quantities and delivered at speed.

A venture capitalist, who oversaw biotech investments and had led teams which had launched six drugs targeting autoimmune diseases and cancer, she was phoned by Mr Johnson in April and asked to 'stop people dying'.

Within a fortnight, she had assembled a team of private sector experts and identified a shortlist of 23 potential vaccines. Britain soon had an order book for 367 million doses.

Ms Bingham ensured Britain became the first Western country to begin its mass vaccination programme in December, having overseen the process of setting up production facilities and getting drugs green-lit in record time (the EU, by contrast, approved the Oxford vaccine only yesterday).

No. 10 sources this week described her appointment as a 'key moment', saying: 'Kate grabbed hold of the entire process. It was a turning point. If it hadn't been for her, we wouldn't be where we are now.'

For her pains, Ms Bingham was the subject of vicious attacks, not least after the Sunday Times reported that she'd authorised the spending of £670,000 by the Vaccine taskforce on a PR campaign.

Noting that her husband, Jesse Norman, is a Conservative MP, prominent opposition politicians went so far as to demand she be sacked from the unpaid role.

Among them was Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Lib Dems, who announced: 'Kate Bingham must resign . . . Johnson's dodgy cronyism is an absolute disgrace'; and Zara Sultana, a Corbynite Labour MP, who said: 'She should step aside immediately. This is just another example of jobs and contracts involved in tackling the pandemic being handed out to friends of the Conservatives.'

Angela Rayner, Labour's Deputy Leader, chuntered that 'this cronyism stinks'; while Sir Keir Starmer said of Mrs Bingham's PR project, 'You cannot justify that sort of money being spent'. How wrong-headed they now look.

For what none of these noisy critics realised — seemingly because they hadn't bothered to find out — was that you could, in fact, justify the £670,000 outlay in question.

For it was actually spent on a crucial campaign to get hard-to-reach groups not only to take part in vaccine trials, but also to agree to roll up their sleeves as and when a vaccine was available.

The project appears to have worked, too, since around 400,000 volunteers were eventually recruited for the trial, of which eight per cent came from ethnic minorities and more than 30 per cent were elderly — the two groups who are most at risk from Covid. Sir Keir seemingly first learnt of this awkward fact at Prime Minister's questions this week, when Boris Johnson told him that he 'cannot think of a better use of public funds' than the £670,000.

Not for nothing does the PM like to call his opposite number 'Captain Hindsight'.

Ms Bingham was also responsible for Britain's strategy of early investment in a range of other potential vaccine projects, ordering vast quantities and paying sufficient sums to ensure drug firms could invest early in manufacturing facilities that could allow them to supply large quantities to the UK. By the time she stepped down this month, she could report that the UK is on course not just to meet, but exceed its vaccination targets.

A crucial example of her procurement policy paying off was in the deal the UK signed in May with AstraZeneca for 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine.

It was negotiated by the vaccine taskforce and Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, who was anxious to learn from problems the UK had suffered in procuring PPE.

The contract stipulated that the Government would invest large sums in the creation of two UK production plants for the drug. In return, a clause stated that those plants could not supply outside the UK until the initial 100 million order had been fulfilled.

Having already signed this deal, the Government then came under severe pressure from opposition parties to drop it and join the EU vaccine scheme. Although the decision to decline was ultimately a political one, it was supported by Ms Bingham's taskforce.

'The conditions that the EU set to allow us to participate were conditions we felt were not attractive,' she later told Parliament.

'We were not able to join any decision-making on which vaccines; we had to abandon the negotiations we either had underway or had concluded with AstraZeneca; and we also were not able to talk to future potential vaccine companies that they may not be talking to currently, but would do in the future. We felt the conditions were too tight, and that we would be able to act more quickly if we did it independently.'

At times, the abuse Ms Bingham faced was more than merely unpleasant.

In a particularly unhinged moment, for example, the Runnymede Trust race relations lobby group went to the High Court seeking to have her appointment declared unlawful on the grounds that giving 'jobs for their mates' breached the Equality Act.

The Trust's lawsuit attacked her as a Tory MP's wife 'with no significant experience in public health administration and no expertise in immunology'.

Thankfully, they (like Labour and the Lib Dems) failed to have Ms Bingham kicked out of the job she was doing so brilliantly. Unsurprisingly, the Runnymede Trust has yet to apologise for its attack.

Meanwhile, the EU was making a mess of its vaccine programme. It ordered too few vaccines, and made a number of bets that backfired, including a decision to order 300 million doses of a French vaccine that has (so far) not worked.

Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy had negotiated their own contracts with AstraZeneca in June. But they were forced to wait until the end of August for a deal to be signed off, after Brussels determined that negotiations could take place only if they involved the entire block.

This fatal tardiness represents a crucial error. For as Pascal Soirot, AstraZeneca's French CEO, explained this week, supply chains had been created to fulfil both the UK's and the EU's vaccine order.

Although both experienced teething issues with production, the UK had sufficient time to overcome them. The EU did not. 'With the UK, we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches,' was how he put it.

Someone, in other words, has indeed been making decisions that have proven to be 'dumb and dumber.' But it wasn't the people Labour's shadow minister for Europe — along with so many of her cynical allies — was so shamelessly attacking last summer.

[Switch]

I must be among the few who picked up on original reporting of the AZ vaccine, whereby the UK government insisted that the deal with Oxford scientists would only be underwritten and sponsored with government financial support, provided the vaccine could be produced at no profit, thus enabling poorer countries to join in any potential success.
Exactly the opposite of such glorious institutions like the EU are currently demonstrating.
All this done prior to vaccine approval being achieved! Not only has the UK got ahead of the EU in vaccine roll out, but done so from a very high moral standard of behaviour. Once again, underlining how cumbersome and massively flawed the great EU system is.
If only Kate Bingham was black or of unspecified gender.

[strigils]

Oxford scientists would only be underwritten and sponsored with government financial support, provided the vaccine could be produced at no profit, thus enabling poorer countries to join in any potential success.

Nope, i think many were aware, it can be licenced as is the case with India's serum institute. The problem is that the manufacturing facilities aren't affordable to most poorer countries so they are reliant upon external supply and with Govts looking after vested interests first they find themselves as usual waiting for the crumbs to drop from the tables of richer countries.

[taxexile]

India is giving away millions of coronavirus vaccine doses as a tool of diplomacy.

By
Joanna Slater
Jan. 21, 2021 at 7:03 p.m. GMT

NEW DELHI — India started vaccinating its own population against the coronavirus only a few days ago, but it is already using its manufacturing heft to generate goodwill with its neighbors.

India’s government has made the calculation that it has enough vaccine doses to share. The result is a form of vaccine diplomacy that appears to be unlike any other in the world.

Since Wednesday, the Indian government has sent free doses to Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives — more than 3.2 million in total. Donations to Mauritius, Myanmar and Seychelles are set to follow. Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are next on the list.

The shipments reflect one of India’s unique strengths: It is home to a robust vaccine industry, including Serum Institute of India, one of the world’s largest vaccine makers.

Early in the pandemic, Serum Institute formed a partnership to produce the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. By this year, it had already stockpiled 80 million doses. Some of that production will be delivered this month to the [at]Covax initiative backed by the World Health Organization to distribute vaccines to poorer countries.


In the race to combat the pandemic, several countries are using vaccine production as a route to enhance their global influence. But the Indian government seems to be the first to deliver multiple gifts to neighboring countries.

China has made a concerted push to sell its vaccines to countries around the globe for months but only recently announced donations to Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines. It is not clear if the free vaccines have been shipped.

On Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign minister had a call with his Chinese counterpart and announced that China would donate 500,000 vaccine doses by Jan. 31.

India’s diplomatic initiative has its own hashtag — #VaccineMaitri, or vaccine friendship — and received a high-profile plug from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India is “deeply honoured to be a long-trusted partner in meeting the healthcare needs of the global community,” he wrote on Twitter.

The push comes at a time when the virus is in retreat in India. The country is a distant second to the United States in terms of coronavirus cases, with about 10.6 million. Daily cases have dropped significantly since last fall.

India launched its nationwide vaccination drive, one of the world’s largest, on Jan. 16. The country is aiming to vaccinate 300 million people by the summer, starting with 10 million health-care personnel. Regulators fast-tracked the approval of two vaccines — the AstraZeneca vaccine and, more controversially, a vaccine called Covaxin developed in India that does not yet have efficacy data.

So far India is providing the AstraZeneca vaccine to its neighbors. Some analysts questioned whether the donations would have a lasting impact on existing sources of tension, such as a boundary dispute with Nepal.


“You have neighbors who resent India’s overweening ways as it is,” said Manoj Joshi, a [at]foreign policy analyst and senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “I don’t think they’re going to be so terribly grateful that they forget all that.”

Conspicuously absent from the list of countries receiving free vaccine doses is Pakistan, India’s rival and neighbor to the west.

The relationship between the two countries hit a nadir in 2019 when they engaged in their first aerial dogfight in nearly 50 years following a terrorist attack in Kashmir.



Pakistan recently approved the AstraZeneca vaccine. It has not approached India about a potential shipment, said two Indian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” one of the officials said.

A spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry referred queries to the Health Ministry, which did not respond.

India is monitoring its vaccine supply on a weekly basis to make sure it can meet both domestic needs and demands from other countries, one of the Indian officials said. Commercial exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine — including to Brazil and Morocco — will begin within days.

Countries that received the free vaccine doses this week expressed their thanks. On Wednesday, an Indian military transport plane landed at the only international airport in Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan nation wedged between India and China. It carried 150,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, enough to vaccinate more than one-tenth of the total population targeted for immunization.

Lotay Tshering, Bhutan’s prime minister, said in a statement that the Bhutanese people were “immensely grateful” for the doses. “It is of unimaginable value when precious commodities are shared even before meeting your own needs.”


Updated January 26, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ffd_story.html

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Perhaps it is time that like health care, vaccine development is taken over by the government.
Not sure if it is a good idea, but certainly something to think about.

[jabir]

I'm sure that's possible in principle, say an critical emergency or Martial Law situation, but as is I doubt the stiff upper lip would stand for bojo trying that on, more likely UK burns.

[strigils]

or perhaps a commission

[cyrille]

Perhaps it is time that like health care, vaccine development is taken over by the government.
Not sure if it is a good idea, but certainly something to think about.

Everything the UK goverment has got involved in regarding this outbreak has been shit and cost a fortune, with of course most of the money going to their buddies.

So no, it doesn't bear thinking about.

[strigils]

I think it must be leak in ICUs globally at present but Portugal has theirs 2/3rd full of COVID cases. God they earn their money on these jobs. From the Guardian live feed



Portugal has warned it has just seven vacant beds left in intensive care units set up for Covid-19 cases on its mainland.

A surge in infections in the country has prompted the authorities to send some critical patients to Portuguese islands.

Reuters reports:

Health Ministry data showed that, out of 850 ICU beds allocated to Covid-19 cases on its mainland, a record 843 beds were now occupied.

The nation of 10 million people has an additional 420 ICU beds for those with other ailments.

The ministry said the number of daily infections was 12,435, dipping from Thursday’s record, while there were 293 deaths.

Portugal, which has so far reported a total of 12,179 Covid-19 deaths and 711,018 cases, has the world’s highest seven-day rolling average of cases and deaths per capita.

[harrybarracuda]

Everything the UK goverment has got involved in regarding this outbreak has been shit and cost a fortune, with of course most of the money going to their buddies.

So no, it doesn't bear thinking about.

Anything *any* government gets involved in tends to rapidly increase in both project duration and cost.

So no, it doesn't bear thinking about.

[harrybarracuda]

Macron is obviously taking potshots as both his vaccine response and development in France have been ineffectual, poor chap its going to take a miracle for him to get re-elected next year.

Macron claims Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine ‘quasi-ineffective’ on older people

He's trying to save some business for Sanofi.