What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

McGiver

Aegir wrote: »

Can you show some examples?

I know Russia, for example, only include deaths where an autopsy gives Covid 19 as the main cause of death, so the estimation is that their numbers are probably three times higher than the official figures.

I’ve seen nothing that details how Spain, Italy of even Ireland count numbers.

As I said, it's on the ECDC website. Google is your friend.

Section 5.1 definition-of-covid-19-deaths-by-country.

https://covid19-surveillance-report.ecdc.europa.eu/#definition-of-covid-19-deaths-by-country

Dyr

hotmail.com wrote: »

Does Ursula ever give interviews?

There is an ongoing impression that the EU is above criticism and above accountability.

Ursula is the EU commisions president because of accountability. The German parliment and public held her accountable for her failure as minister for defence and the dodgy contracts her dept awarded for her, so she was moved on

Thankfully she failed forwards, like a of lot of Ministers in European Governments who are sent off to run Europe as a reward for taking a bullet for their governments in the homeland.

monkeybutter

monkeybutter wrote: »

What are trying to say

The doses are small, it wouldn't take that much effort to store them, the EU love a stockpile

30 million doses?

McGiver

redarmyblues wrote: »

AZ has mishandled the Oxford vaccine many times in its development (they are being sued in the US by a PERS over this), first time to do a vaccine I believe and the FDA is not near a decision on approving it. The actions of UVDL has given it a little cover when the facts at the moment are that the company can't scale up production.

Also here https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/astrazeneca-vaccine-testing-stumble-draws-023422984.html

Exactly the same issues the EMA raised. The trial was botched and the data dodgy.

EMA shouldn't have approved or at least not for over 55 y old.
And the optimal dosing regimen is still unclear.

Pete_Cavan

TobyHolmes wrote: »

what is the EU playing at? They do understand the sensitivity of the border but they twisted it to their own needs. #notimpressed

Dont blame Britian because they have their act together and negotiated a better contract. Their obligation is to the UK not to the EU.

Ive always been the number one fan of the EU - but this is a shambles and they left Ireland in a very precarious position.

The EU didn't actually activate Art 16. Arlene can rant all she wants but she wanted Westminster to trigger it only days ago, pure faux outrage. This is nowhere near as bad as the UKs Internal Markets Bill which they continued to threaten for ages, at less the EU rowed back within hours.

TobyHolmes

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The EU didn't actually activate Art 16. Arlene can rant all she wants but she wanted Westminster to trigger it only days ago, pure faux outrage. This is nowhere near as bad as the UKs Internal Markets Bill which they continued to threaten for ages, at less the EU rowed back within hours.

i read somewhere it was triggered for 3 hours. so perhaps some confusion whether it was an attempted trigger or was actually triggered. I do think though its not faux outrage as it blindsided our government leaders who this directly affects so there is a bit of game playing going on. and its really only the people who lose in the end of the day.

McGiver

McGiver wrote: »

As I said, it's on the ECDC website. Google is your friend.

Section 5.1 definition-of-covid-19-deaths-by-country.

https://covid19-surveillance-report.ecdc.europa.eu/#definition-of-covid-19-deaths-by-country

thanks, I hadn't seen that.

So the UK is using the same criteria as Ireland then, deaths within 28 days, which I believe is the WHO recommended wat of doing it.

The reason the UK regularly publishes all three figures is to show as transparently as possible the full extent of the pandemic. Excess deaths is probably the most accurate way, because it shows the whole effect rather than just the deaths caused by the illness itself. These are the figures I haven't been able to find for anywhere other than the UK, although I am sure they are there somewhere.

McGiver wrote: »

Also here https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/astrazeneca-vaccine-testing-stumble-draws-023422984.html

Exactly the same issues the EMA raised. The trial was botched and the data dodgy.

EMA shouldn't have approved or at least not for over 55 y old.
And the optimal dosing regimen is still unclear.

so we don't need all those highly trained experts at the EMA trawling through tonnes of data and giving their educated opinion, we should just ask you?

Pete_Cavan

Aegir wrote: »

I’d be interested in some clarification of this from someone in the pharma industry.

Is it as simple as “stockpiling”? These are pharma products that need to be kept at low temperature in a sterile environment. It’s not like you just stick them in boxes and pile them up in a warehouse.

We’re talking millions of doses here, how exactly do you stockpile them?

I would have thought the best solution would have been to ship them to the countries that are receiving them and let them build their own stocks, pretty much as Stephen Donnelly wanted to do, but was blocked by the Eu.

Sending some of EU produced doses to the UK was probably the sensible thing to do rather than trying to store all of them. It would though make sense for those to be replaced by UK produced doses now, which is basically what the EU want.

Pete_Cavan

TobyHolmes wrote: »

i read somewhere it was triggered for 3 hours. so perhaps some confusion whether it was an attempted trigger or was actually triggered. I do think though its not faux outrage as it blindsided our government leaders who this directly affects so there is a bit of game playing going on. and its really only the people who lose in the end of the day.

Faux outrage from Arlene, the outrage from the Irish government was very real.

TobyHolmes

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Faux outrage from Arlene, the outrage from the Irish government was very real.

I hear u!

Sam Russell

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Faux outrage from Arlene, the outrage from the Irish government was very real.

I think Arlene might have shot herself in the foot though.

in the last week or so she asked the British Gov to invoke Art 16. They did not.

So when she hears that the EU has triggered Art 16, she says it is hostile and outrageous. So now, whoever calls for Art 16, is going to be doing an act that she considers 'hostile and outrageous'.

That will be true if she calls for it herself. I think that rules it out for her for some time.

...Ghost...

Sam Russell wrote: »

I think Arlene might have shot herself in the foot though.

in the last week or so she asked the British Gov to invoke Art 16. They did not.

So when she hears that the EU has triggered Art 16, she says it is hostile and outrageous. So now, whoever calls for Art 16, is going to be doing an act that she considers 'hostile and outrageous'.

That will be true if she calls for it herself. I think that rules it out for her for some time.

It's only hostile and outrageous if the EU trigger it. It's good politics if the UK do it :pac:

Parachutes

EU are just really jealous that the UK have had a relatively successful vaccine rollout, whereas the EU’s roll out has been dismal in comparison. People in other countries might start thinking the Brexit model isn’t such a bad idea...

Once again ROI/NI being used as a political football to get back at the UK for having the audacity to leave the bloc.

NeuralNetwork

The speed of the rollout basically came down to several factors:

1) Risk taking mentality of Government. The AstraZeneca vaccine was signed off very hastily in the UK. I'm glad it's gone well for them, but that may not have been the case and it's a huge risk to take with a population wide vaccine rollout.

They granted AZ and emergency authorisation, which is where the Government ends up taking all liability for any issues.

The EMA authorisation is a longer process that has been compressed to speed it up. It's still been through all the steps, just at higher speed and simultaneously. Liability isn't borne by the governments in the same way should something go wrong and the process is a lot more detailed and transparent. The FDA has also behaved very similarly and you'll note that AstraZeneca is not yet approved in the USA. The EMA was faster to approve it.

The UK Government's risk taking attempts at blue-sky thinking mentality has also been what landed them with a huge outbreak in the first place as they refused to lock down and went on that bonkers herd immunity drive by natural infection.

2) It was pot luck with the fact that the AstraZeneca vaccine has proven relatively useful. Had it gone the way of the GSK vaccine and been a dead end, it would have been a hugely different story.

3) The AstraZeneca issue seems to be a case of over promising and a production glitch. Unless the EU has some evidence of some grand conspiracy by the UK, the Commission's reaction was far too extreme and poorly executed and communicated. There's no getting around that. However, it's a storm in a tea cup and I think it will have blown over by the end of the week.

I watched Liz Truss' interview on Sky News and to be fair to her, she was being very calm, level headed and reasonable. However, the media in the UK has jumped on a line about how they will only help out other countries if it doesn't impinge upon the UK rollout, which is EXACTLY what the EU is doing too. She just phrased it more delicately and has a media who are happy to find an anti-EU message in what she was saying, even though I honestly don't think that was her intention at all.

The simple reality of it is that the EU will have more vaccine than it can possibly use in a couple of months time and will be putting excess supplies into COVAX. So will the UK and others.

These are seriously complex products to roll out and you are looking at spurts of activity and teething problems as they get off the ground. When all of these programmes are in full swing, you should see rather rapid vaccination of populations in the US, the EU, the UK, Japan, Canada etc etc.

The EU is not in any kind of weak position on this. It hasn't gone as smoothly as it could have, but that should change and I think lessons are being learned quite rapidly.

smellyoldboot

Parachutes wrote: »

EU are just really jealous that the UK have had a relatively successful vaccine rollout, whereas the EU’s roll out has been dismal in comparison. People in other countries might start thinking the Brexit model isn’t such a bad idea...

Once again ROI/NI being used as a political football to get back at the UK for having the audacity to leave the bloc.

Keep drinking that kool aid bro. Let me guess, you're a Sun/Mail reader and favour UK news channels, from whence you derive all of your viewpoints.

Parachutes

smellyoldboot wrote: »

Keep drinking that kool aid bro. Let me guess, you're a Sun/Mail reader and favour UK news channels, from whence you derive all of your viewpoints.

AstraZeneca is a UK based vaccine and the UK did nothing wrong in contracting vaccines from them. Why should the UK lose out because the EU have had a slower roll out and are now facing massive discontent in some of its constituent nations in the form of riots and protests. EU is simply playing vaccine politics and putting British lives at risk by denying them their vaccines. It has nothing to do with ‘favouring UK news’ That’s just labelling someone as a West Brit for an argument.

Stupid post.

TobyHolmes

smellyoldboot wrote: »

Keep drinking that kool aid bro. Let me guess, you're a Sun/Mail reader and favour UK news channels, from whence you derive all of your viewpoints.

I'd be of a very similar view to the poster who's post you are commenting on.


and I certainly dont favour UK news/media etc.


so I'm just curious what is the argument that this is a kool aid view.


I have always been a very strong proponent and supporter of EU but think they have dropped the ball on this one.


why is it drinking the kool aid to think this? Please persuade us otherwise and with some valid arguments so I can understand your point of view.

Responder XY

Parachutes wrote: »

AstraZeneca is a UK based vaccine and the UK did nothing wrong in contracting vaccines from them. Why should the UK lose out because the EU have had a slower roll out and are now facing massive discontent in some of its constituent nations in the form of riots and protests. EU is simply playing vaccine politics and putting British lives at risk by denying them their vaccines. It has nothing to do with ‘favouring UK news’ That’s just labelling someone as a West Brit for an argument.

Stupid post.

UK likely did nothing wrong, but also there is no basis to prioritise the UK over Europe given the contracts signed by AZ.

The UK will need to take their share of the pain arising from the production issues.

NeuralNetwork

It's a contractual dispute with AstraZeneca, a multinational who appear to have over promised and under delivered. I think the whole nationalism line is absolute nonsense.

The reality of it is these processes are like brewing or wine making. They're biological. They are not widgets to be stamped out and the processes can and do go wrong in start up. They are also using contract manufacturers to bring in the capacity as they aren't really one of the seriously huge biotech companies themselves, so that adds another element of complication.

I think nerves are somewhat frayed with the aftermath of Brexit, trade issues with the UK and frankly even the horror show that has been the last few years with Trump nationalism and threats to do things like buy out manufacturing and R&D facilities in the EU last year.

What it illustrates to me is the utter toxicity of Brexit and how much damage has been done to what were otherwise very friendly and functional working relations between neighbouring countries.

It's also worth noting that the European Commission is but one part of the European Union's system of governance and there are a whole series of checks and balances, which are democratically accountable to either national governments (the Council) or directly to the population (European Parliament) which would have had to be brought into play before any dramatic moves were taken.

In the end the Commission has backed down quite dramatically and literally within hours. However, the position the EU has taken on monitoring vaccine and other emergency related exports isn't any different to the UK's pre-existing positions anyway. They're all doing that and in the event of a serious problem, most countries (or the EU acting as one in the case of the 27 members) will put emergency brakes on. That isn't anything strange or unusual. It's just now a big fuss in the media thanks to a rather over-the-top reaction.

It was a misstep and one that was quickly corrected. However, I think we will be spending days or weeks listening to smug, finger wagging statements from the permanently offended Brexiteers, who would have and actually have demand in the past far worse themselves.

TobyHolmes

Responder XY wrote: »

UK likely did nothing wrong, but also there is no basis to prioritise the UK over Europe given the contracts signed by AZ.

The UK will need to take their share of the pain arising from the production issues.

but thats AZ's problem not the UK. If AZ are prioritising UK over EU - why is it that the UK's problem.



the UK have not done anything legally wrong. Its just not their problem.


Its AZ's and the EU's

People are trying to make the UK culpable and they simply are not

Responder XY

TobyHolmes wrote: »

but thats AZ's problem not the UK. If AZ are prioritising UK over EU - why is it that the UK's problem.



the UK have not done anything legally wrong. Its just not their problem.


Its AZ's and the EU's

People are trying to make the UK culpable and they simply are not

It's everyones' problem because everyone is a customer of AZ. AZ can't produce as many vaccines as they promised. They tried to tell the EU that they were taking all the pain for that which was very wrong. EU and UK must take the pain proportionate to their order sizes per the contracts signed. 

Parachutes

Responder XY wrote: »

UK likely did nothing wrong, but also there is no basis to prioritise the UK over Europe given the contracts signed by AZ.

The UK will need to take their share of the pain arising from the production issues.

UK approved AstraZeneca and contracted vaccines first, way before the EU. The EU then ordered their vaccines. AstraZeneca have to honour their contract with the UK first, that’s what’s causing the issues. It’s a bad situation but the UK have no responsibility to give vaccines to the EU.

TobyHolmes

Responder XY wrote: »

It's everyones' problem because everyone is a customer of AZ. AZ can't produce as many vaccines as they promised. They tried to tell the EU that they were taking all the pain for that which was very wrong. EU and UK must take the pain proportionate to their order sizes per the contracts signed.

If AZ are fulfilling the terms of the UK's contract why should the UK then change their terms to suit the EU?


there is a difference between what they legally should do and what they morally should do

TobyHolmes

Parachutes wrote: »

UK approved AstraZeneca and contracted vaccines first, way before the EU. The EU then ordered their vaccines. AstraZeneca have to honour their contract with the UK first, that’s what’s causing the issues. It’s a bad situation but the UK have no responsibility to give vaccines to the EU.

exactly


that doesnt mean its the morally right thing to do - but they are under no legal obligation to the EU.

PCeeeee

TobyHolmes wrote: »

but thats AZ's problem not the UK. If AZ are prioritising UK over EU - why is it that the UK's problem.



the UK have not done anything legally wrong. Its just not their problem.


Its AZ's and the EU's

People are trying to make the UK culpable and they simply are not

I have to say I'm also inclining towards this view. Given the EU reaction I had expected something to come out about the UK acting at the very least immorally but that hasn't happened. We can only assume that no such event happened given the lack of such reporting.

NeuralNetwork

TobyHolmes wrote: »

exactly


that doesnt mean its the morally right thing to do - but they are under no legal obligation to the EU.

The UK don't have any obligation to do anything, but AstraZeneca may have an obligation to provide whatever it was it agreed to provide using the facilities it is leasing use of in the EU, rather than provide those to the UK programmes.

That's ultimately where the EU is coming from on this.

It's a commercial dispute between AstraZeneca and the European Commission, who negotiated this contract.

The UK is just another customer and 3rd party to all of this.

I think as other supplies ramp up. For example the Pfizer supply lines are doing just that right now, the whole thing will become an irrelevant blip anyway. It may well end up in court as the two parties bash out whatever they think they are supposed to be complying with in terms of the contract, but that could roll on for years and will be rather dull.

In the meantime, the programme will just roll on and expanded capacity will happen.

TobyHolmes

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

The UK don't have any obligation to do anything, but AstraZeneca may have an obligation to provide whatever it was it agreed to provide using the facilities it is leasing use of in the EU, rather than provide those to the UK programmes.

That's ultimately where the EU is coming from on this.

It's a commercial dispute between AstraZeneca and the European Commission, who negotiated this contract.

yes true - my point is everyone is just laying blame on the UK and its simply not their problem if AZ fulfilling their contract. EU and AZ have to work it out.

Responder XY

Parachutes wrote: »

UK approved AstraZeneca and contracted vaccines first, way before the EU. The EU then ordered their vaccines. AstraZeneca have to honour their contract with the UK first, that’s what’s causing the issues. It’s a bad situation but the UK have no responsibility to give vaccines to the EU.

That's really not how contracts work. If AZ had said to the EU we'll provide you with 100m doses on a best efforts basis, but be aware the UK are in the queue ahead of you, then fair enough. But that isn't what it says.

So the UK should have protected their position, in terms of priority if they were concerned, with a term in their contract.

If the UK did that and AZ didn't reference that restiction in the EU contract, then AZ are in a sucky place because they are screwed in that they must breach one or both contracts. Most likely though, they have the same contractual terms and both parties will have to take some of the pain and AZ complies with the best efforts basis clause in their contracts.  

MrMusician18

TobyHolmes wrote: »

yes true - my point is everyone is just laying blame on the UK and its simply not their problem if AZ fulfilling their contract. EU and AZ have to work it out.

The problem could be the UK's if they have included a priority clause in their contract. That would be seen as vaccine nationalism and it would be hypocritical of them to criticise other states countermeasures.

If this is the case, it would ultimately be a problem for AZ who should've disclosed this that it had other obligations that could impact it's delivery.

The above is pure conjecture and opinion but I'm struggling to see other reasons why the EU cannot have vaccine from UK plants at the moment.

TobyHolmes

MrMusician18 wrote: »

The problem could be the UK's if they have included a priority clause in their contract. That would be seen as vaccine nationalism and it would be hypocritical of them to criticise other states countermeasures.

If this is the case, it would ultimately be a problem for AZ who should've disclosed this that it had other obligations that could impact it's delivery.

The above is pure conjecture and opinion but I'm struggling to see other reasons why the EU cannot have vaccine from UK plants at the moment.

hmmm good point.


it is indeed a mess