What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

Pete_Cavan

Aegir wrote: »

that's irrelevant. it isn't done on a lend lease basis. If AZ told the UK government that they had supply issues at the UK sites, but spare capacity at sites in Italy and Belgium, then that has nothing to do with the UK.

there are/were no "EU" stocks, there were just stocks.

Apparently there are just stocks and then there are UK stocks. The AZ CEO claimed that UK produced doses were for the UK and EU produced doses for the EU but that's not how they did it. They are also now looking to source their Q2 supply from outside the EU so their story has changed again.

eoinbn

Replying here instead of in Vaccine thread.

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

I know. AZ themselves even have a press release on their website from June when they confirmed the size of the order and that they were working towards fulfilling that. The is that the contract signing in August is of little relevance to AZ's failure to deliver for the EU, as people like to make out.

What I am seeing suggested is that AZ have spread themselves too thin. They have a lot of sites all over the world. AZ need to perform a knowledge/skill transfer and only have a limited number people that can provide the training. The EU weren't a top priority in this so the transfer took place later.

Pete_Cavan

eoinbn wrote: »

Replying here instead of in Vaccine thread.



What I am seeing suggested is that AZ have spread themselves too thin. They have a lot of sites all over the world. AZ need to perform a knowledge/skill transfer and only have a limited number people that can provide the training. The EU weren't a top priority in this so the transfer took place later.

Yes, the AZ approach seems to be sign contracts in the hope, rather than knowledge, that they can fulfil them. It will be interesting to see where the other 90m EU doses for Q2 come from.

Melanchthon

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Yes, the AZ approach seems to be sign contracts in the hope, rather than knowledge, that they can fulfil them. It will be interesting to see where the other 90m EU doses for Q2 come from.

Yeah I think that's an uncontroversial statement whatever side of the debate your on. It's often forgotten but the UK was meant to have a massive delivery of Astra Zeneca back in the autumn that didn't happen.

brickster69

UK to receive 10 Million doses from Serum Institute of India

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/10-million-doses-from-india-wont-impact-poor-nations-vaccine-access-says-uk-221497#.YEOJe5OWBOQ.twitter

deeperlearning

Austrian authorities have suspended vaccinations with a batch of AstraZeneca’s vaccine as a precaution while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after the shots:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/covid-19-austria-suspends-batch-of-astrazeneca-vaccine-as-precaution-after-death-1.4503567

Bit cynical

Strazdas wrote: »

Indeed, but there have also been supply and delivery issues with Pfizer and Moderna in Q1.

The slowish rollout is far more to do with individual member states like Germany and France messing up the rollout than the EU procurement. (British media and their public are convinced it's down to the EU-AZ contract row).

I don't think the data supports that. If we look at the chart, Germany is pretty much at the EU average and France is very slightly lower. If Germany or France were actually dragging the average down they would be much lower on this chart compared to the EU average. Additionally, the EU average is bolstered by some countries doing outside deals further negating the idea that Germany and France are holding the EU back significantly.

IRISHSPORTSGUY

brickster69 wrote: »

UK to receive 10 Million doses from Serum Institute of India

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/10-million-doses-from-india-wont-impact-poor-nations-vaccine-access-says-uk-221497#.YEOJe5OWBOQ.twitter

The EU are currently auditing the Serum Institute for potential exports to the bloc apparently. Hopefully it doesn't take weeks, if not months in typical EU fashion.

Some countries suspending AstraZeneca due to possible links to blood clots.

El Vino

Yes I’ve seen this, probably the right thing to do but is certainly not going to ease hesitancy on the continent to receiving this vaccine.

Danzy

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Some countries suspending AstraZeneca due to possible links to blood clots.

Yet per capita there is more embolisms in the general population than from the Astra Zeneca group.

It's a non story scientifically.

robinph

Danzy wrote: »

Yet per capita there is more embolisms in the general population than from the Astra Zeneca group.

It's a non story scientifically.

Similar to when the trials were suspended back in October after some people in the trial got ill from what turned out to be totally unrelated reasons, they they start up again once the investigation is completed. Just when something gets flagged on the system they pause briefly.

mista11

They seam to pause alot more on astrazenca - i wonder why that is.....

NeuralNetwork

It’s the second story out of Scandinavia on vaccines that has amounted to nothing, yet caused serious implications in countries like France where there’s a large cohort only waiting for stories like this.

Correlation ≠ causation.

robinph

mista11 wrote: »

They seam to pause alot more on astrazenca - i wonder why that is.....

Think the trial pauses I heard of were for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZenica, then this one since releasing the vaccine into the wild. Not exactly massive numbers.

How does this compare with a normal vaccine trial and during the early stages of it being in use?

stefanovich

Danzy wrote: »

Yet per capita there is more embolisms in the general population than from the Astra Zeneca group.

It's a non story scientifically.

Is that comparison constrained temporally?

What I mean is, comparing the chance of developing a blood clot within 2 weeks of the vaccine versus the baseline chance of developing a clot over a 2 week period.

Are you saying the baseline is higher? So the vaccine appears to reduce the chance of clots?

Danzy

stefanovich wrote: »

Is that comparison constrained temporally?

What I mean is, comparing the chance of developing a blood clot within 2 weeks of the vaccine versus the baseline chance of developing a clot over a 2 week period.

Are you saying the baseline is higher? So the vaccine appears to reduce the chance of clots?

The Doctor talking about it, didn't mention that, just that it was well within the natural range.

astrofool

stefanovich wrote: »

Is that comparison constrained temporally?

What I mean is, comparing the chance of developing a blood clot within 2 weeks of the vaccine versus the baseline chance of developing a clot over a 2 week period.

Are you saying the baseline is higher? So the vaccine appears to reduce the chance of clots?

Blood clots are rare.

In the sample of the population that got the vaccine the number was lower than the naturally occurring rate, but because the numbers are so low anyway, there would be no confidence value that the vaccines reduce blood clots.

In a lot of these, it's 1 case of an ailment, and if there's 2 cases then people stupidly "double" the risk, and if there's 0 cases, it also starts "curing" whatever thing normally happens. You saw this with the people talking about blindness and bell's palsy, it's generally anti-vaxxers trawling data for something that looks scary so they can misinterpret what it means.

Strazdas

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

It’s the second story out of Scandinavia on vaccines that has amounted to nothing, yet caused serious implications in countries like France where there’s a large cohort only waiting for stories like this.

Correlation ≠ causation.

A counter argument would be that nobody seems to trust AZ or their CEO. Are they the architects of their own misfortune here? A fair bit of their poor reputation seems to be self inflicted.

MrMusician18

Wolf359f wrote: »

I've only read about EU factories being used for fill and finish for the UK. I don't see any issue with that if it didn't effect the EU production.

I would actually love to see how many doses of AZ and Pfizer have been exported from the EU. Just to see the volume exported vs volume delivered to the EU for each vaccine.

The number of doses exported by the EU is about 35m.
The UK has exported 0, as has the US.

Wolf359f

MrMusician18 wrote: »

The number of doses exported by the EU is about 35m.
The UK has exported 0, as has the US.

Yeah I seen that. I think that's just February figures. Looks to be for each 1 exported dose there's 1 for domestic EU use.
We could be twice as far into the vaccination program if they were not exporting, but then there would be so many countries that wouldn't have even started yet.

take everything

That one Karina Butler from the NIAC has come out with there is no difference in efficacy in the AZ vaccine and the mRNA vaccines.

This is just an out and out falsehood.
And she will have sway over the government changing their policy on administration of this vaccine to over seventies, my mother being one of those people.

What recourse do people like my mother have here. Put pressure on their GPs who will put pressure on the powers that be?
Especially when Butler says people will not have a choice of vaccine.
Is there anything else that people like my mother can do (when this one with a fair amount of power is spouting ****).

NeuralNetwork

Strazdas wrote: »

A counter argument would be that nobody seems to trust AZ or their CEO. Are they the architects of their own misfortune here? A fair bit of their poor reputation seems to be self inflicted.

The previous panic was earlier on in the rollout of Pfizer, which amounted to nothing more than a misread of what was normal mortality statistics amongst very frail individuals.

There’s a huge, huge issue if there’s an impact on vaccine uptake. All it took was a few scare stories, based on misinterpreted stats on childhood vaccines that’s caused a huge mess with uptakes.

Absolutely do the reporting and research but stop running to the media with scare stories, without verifying anything every 5 minutes when there’s a huge audience out there who are looking for any excuse to fit with their conspiracy theories.

eoinbn

take everything wrote: »

That one Karina Butler from the NIAC has come out with there is no difference in efficacy in the AZ vaccine and the mRNA vaccines.

This is just an out and out falsehood.
And she will have sway over the government changing their policy on administration of this vaccine to over seventies, my mother being one of those people.

What recourse do people like my mother have here. Put pressure on their GPs who will put pressure on the powers that be?
Especially when Butler says people will not have a choice of vaccine.
Is there anything else that people like my mother can do (when this one with a fair amount of power is spouting ****).

My parents are both over 70. In January I was of a similar opinion to you - I would have much preferred for them to get the mRna vaccines. However since then there has been tons of real world evidence that the AZ vaccine is just as effective at preventing serious illness and death.
I would have no concerns with them getting any of the vaccines.

NeuralNetwork

She’s working on a raft of data that’s coming in and constantly monitoring the situation. The data on the AstraZeneca vaccine has become much more full in the last few months and weeks and views and policies are informed by that. She’s not working on a hunch and would have access to the same information available to the EMA and other regulators’ and researchers resources too.

There was a gap in the data for older age groups and that has been filled in the interim as data came in. So the picture has changed as time went on.

take everything

Why is there a figure of around 60% for efficacy (which she has acknowledged and even quoted) for the AZ vaccine.

This is clearly far lower than the efficacy as the 90-95% for the mRNA vaccines.

More to the point why isn't anyone being explicit about the breakdown of efficacy of AZ vs mRNA vaccines overall and also in all age groups.

That, together with how the company has acted/does business does not inspire much confidence.

Any statements from her about same efficacy has not been backed up from what I can see.

any connection with the delay or shortages of the AZ vaccine and the cases of thrombosis? could they be holding off on shipping due to this? was this a negative finding that was hidden in the raw data I wonder??

astrofool

take everything wrote: »

Why is there a figure of around 60% for efficacy (which she has acknowledged and even quoted) for the AZ vaccine.

This is clearly far lower than the efficacy as the 90-95% for the mRNA vaccines.

More to the point why isn't anyone being explicit about the breakdown of efficacy of AZ vs mRNA vaccines overall and also in all age groups.

That, together with how the company has acted/does business does not inspire much confidence.

Any statements from her about same efficacy has not been backed up from what I can see.

There was a lot of issues with how they measured efficacy for the Oxford trials due to differing dosing, schedules and sample groups. Safety was never an issue, but it's not surprising that the efficacy in real world is different to the trials (remembering that the bar for vaccines is 50% efficacy, so once they reached that and proved safety, they could go for approval).

The Pfizer, Moderna (and now J&J) trials seem to run much more smoothly, so all reported figures had a very high confidence level, which is also showing in numbers post vaccine, AZ was between 62-90, which is a huge range, and the reasons why are becoming clearer as time passes and more real world data comes in.

astrofool

rusty cole wrote: »

any connection with the delay or shortages of the AZ vaccine and the cases of thrombosis? could they be holding off on shipping due to this? was this a negative finding that was hidden in the raw data I wonder??

I doubt it will effect supply (positive or negative) the most likely worst outcome (playing devils advocate, which I hate due to anti-vax idiots latching onto anything) would be that people with an underlying condition prone to blood clots take another vaccine, in my opinion it's much more likely that this was an event that happened unrelated to the vaccine, and it will be shown as completely safe once investigated.

McGiver

JJ approved and coming soon - single dose.

Let's all forget the AZ nonsense. They're a discredited company, and this unfortunate AZ story was only used for English-originated europhobic propaganda in Ireland by bots, trolls and provocateurs (hail to all of them present on this thread too!:))