What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

Bambi wrote: »

The big EU countries did cut side deals, Germany picked up 30 million vaccines outside of the EU scheme and the EU will let them away with it, as they always let Germany breach EU rules whenever Germany wants to. Meanwhile our gob****es were more interested in being the good student in class instead of behaving like a national government and acting in our interests

But seems as how you've wandered into the realms of conjecture, theres only four million of us, we probably could have cut a pretty good deal oursevles, especially if we'd... gasp...coordinated with the Brits :eek:

I seriously doubt we could have cut a better deal with pharmacy companies than the Eu, we are 1.1% of the size of the total EU. We’d barely have any coming in yet, if any at all, without EU collective bargaining. Why would we go in with the UK, we are in the EU.

The Uk are ahead in vaccinations because they “approved” over a month earlier than EU and they have managed to effectively nationalise all uk production of AZ. If they didn’t have control over those factories and de facto control over AZ they would be no better off than any other western country, USA excluded. They backed themselves fair play to them, I hope it works out for them but they’ll have less friends after it if that’s even possible at this stage.

Lots of light at the end of the tunnel for Ireland

Tippbhoy1 wrote: »

If they didn’t have control over those factories and de facto control over AZ they would be no better off than any other western country, USA excluded.

There is hundreds of thousands of doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in storage in Germany because they are refusing to take them.

But they are still accepting their allocated deliveries

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1364275125214969866

Jesus Christ, who the hell is running this company?

Frank Bullitt wrote: »

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1364275125214969866

Jesus Christ, who the hell is running this company?

Moderna are basically the Internet Explorer of vaccines but seem to get off quite easy in comparison.

It seems like the FDA in the US could reject AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine on efficacy and manufacturing shortfalls.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/fda-could-reject-astra-zeneca-s-covid-vaccine-efficacy-and-manufacturing-shortfalls-analyst

Frank Bullitt wrote:

Jesus Christ, who the hell is running this company?

I've been telling that the whole AZ story stinks.
It's a dodgy company, the vaccine is cursed, and riddled with issues since the beginning. Completely discredited bogus company.

1. Contracts with the UK and the EU signed at the same time with essentially the same clauses.
2. AZ applied late to EMA - to avoid 2020 Q4 delivery., I suspect.
3. AZ prioritised Q1 deliveries to the UK over the EU.
4. AZ lied about production issues causing Q1 delivery shortfall - there were none.
5. AZ gave late warning to the EU about the Q1 shortfall.
6. AZ might deliver only 40% of the Q1 volume. Could be even less.
7. AZ now saying they will deliver only 50% of the Q2 volume.
8.... More surprises to come.

Good that we, the EU, didn't put high stake on this vaccine in the overall portfolio, it was only 18%, now with the shortfall and increases to other vaccine numbers it's going to be <10%.

Pfizer ramping up, JJ coming in few weeks, then Novavax, then Curevac.

We should forget the Great British National AZ Vaccine and move on. If we can get extra AZ doses then we good but else forget about it.

JJ is going to be the key vaccine IMHO.

KrustyUCC wrote: »

RTE seem to have changed the AZ story

AstraZeneca also confirmed that it aims to deliver the number of vaccines in line with its contract with the European Commission.

A spokesperson for the Company, said: "AstraZeneca confirms today that its most recent Q2 forecast for the delivery of its COVID-19 vaccine aims to deliver in line with its contract with the European Commission.

"As per this contract, approximately half of the expected volume is due to come from the EU supply chain, while the remainder would come from its international supply network. At this stage AstraZeneca is working to increase productivity in its EU supply chain and to continue to make use of its global capability in order to achieve delivery of 180 million doses to the EU in the second quarter."

An EU source who spoke to RTÉ strongly questioned some of the figures attributed to the official in the Reuters report.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0223/1198890-eu-astrazeneca-vaccine/

If AZ are right that should mean an extra 900,000 vaccines that we budgeted for will be available in Q2

Naomi O'Leary of the Irish Times thinks Reuters got the wrong end of the stick and are quoting numbers that were already known to the EU a few weeks ago.

Sam Russell wrote: »

Public Health is not an EU competence. Consequently, the EU had to get agreement from all 27 member states, which takes time. The intention of their action was to protect smaller states such as ourselves against the larger state (Germany and France) from looking after their own population at the expense of the rest. Remember the scandal of the fight for PPE where states were outbidding each other to get hold of the stuff, some of which was useless.

It took time.

They also had to get the EMA to approve the vaccine which took more time. The UK took a risk by approving vaccines early (which they could - and so could we have done so), and by not adhering to the science as to the dosing regime as tested, they have given more people the first dose by delaying the second dose by 70 days. The appear to be lucky that it has worked out for them so far.

They have yet to start the second dose of the programme.

By not adhering to specific data, not so much the interpretation of that data. There's no precedent in 200 years of vaccines for a single dose regimen to be completely ineffective while 2 doses would surpass expectations in the same limited period of 2-6 months. HepB vaccines are a matter of stimulating the immune system enough to produce lifelong neutralising antibodies, which the phase 2 trials for Covid-19 in general did.

To augment that, Dengue virus and HIV have differing escape mechanisms from antibody-mediated immunity that haven't been found with SARS-CoV-2. In the case of Dengue, that is an example of where infection by one strain can make the next infection by another strain worse. There has been literally nothing in the literature to describe cases where 2nd covid infections have resulted in fatal outcomes when controlled for comorbidities.

I wouldn't describe all these factors as luck. Ultimately though I don't think the EU ****ed up or the UK was perfect, each were responding to their own circumstances and needs to drive infections towards 0

McGiver wrote: »

I've been telling that the whole AZ story stinks.
It's a dodgy company, the vaccine is cursed, and riddled with issues since the beginning. Completely discredited bogus company.

1. Contracts with the UK and the EU signed at the same time with essentially the same clauses.
2. AZ applied late to EMA - to avoid 2020 Q4 delivery., I suspect.
3. AZ prioritised Q1 deliveries to the UK over the EU.
4. AZ lied about production issues causing Q1 delivery shortfall - there were none.
5. AZ gave late warning to the EU about the Q1 shortfall.
6. AZ might deliver only 40% of the Q1 volume. Could be even less.
7. AZ now saying they will deliver only 50% of the Q2 volume.
8.... More surprises to come.

Good that we, the EU, didn't put high stake on this vaccine in the overall portfolio, it was only 18%, now with the shortfall and increases to other vaccine numbers it's going to be <10%.

Pfizer ramping up, JJ coming in few weeks, then Novavax, then Curevac.

We should forget the Great British National AZ Vaccine and move on. If we can get extra AZ doses then we good but else forget about it.

JJ is going to be the key vaccine IMHO.

Vaccine was developed by Oxford in the first place. But I agree AZ have been watching over their backs and maybe acted in an underhanded way. JJ have played a good PR game, and haven't let down any parties so far. Easy for them to take the high road. It's laughable that many describe mRNA vaccines as experimental when virus-vector vaccines are similarly experimental.