COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 2 [Mod Warning - Post #1]

is_that_so

Gael23 wrote: »

What sort of capacity have they?

300m this year and 600m in 2022 at least.

Inquitus

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Seems obvious to me that AZ enabled the UK to pull a fast one on the EU. This goes beyond vaccines in to the realms of politics with Brexit.

The UK got a propaganda victory over the EU who are seen as messing up and they have not been shy about trumpeting it. That will be a high reason why the commission are angry as well as feeling they owned the stock.

It seems the AZ Vaccine has a few questions over it, none have been properly substantiated, but there are questions on its efficacy for over 65's. Also there are other questions about the UK strategy of holding off on the 2nd vaccine and what impact that also has on efficacy. We'll have to wait to see how this plays out, but it is possible the UK is vaccinating its way not out of a hole, but into one, time will tell!

zuutroy

This vaccine political wrangling would make a great page turner. Shame it's real life

titan18

seamus wrote: »

This might have been AZ's gamble. Sure, it's a breach of contract, but what's the EU to do? Cancel their order? AZ have more than enough buyers, 100m doses going on the market is no skin off their nose, they'll have many happy buyers who'll pay over the odds. The EU can take them to court, but by the time it's all settled, AZ will have made more than enough profits to pay back the EU and any penalties, with money to spare.

So on the face it, they have the EU over a barrel, but talk of regulatory control and export restrictions will put the sh1ts up them.

They make more than a covid vaccine though and i'm sure no company wants to lose a market of the EUs size and purchasing power.

salmocab

seamus wrote: »

This might have been AZ's gamble. Sure, it's a breach of contract, but what's the EU to do? Cancel their order? AZ have more than enough buyers, 100m doses going on the market is no skin off their nose, they'll have many happy buyers who'll pay over the odds. The EU can take them to court, but by the time it's all settled, AZ will have made more than enough profits to pay back the EU and any penalties, with money to spare.

So on the face it, they have the EU over a barrel, but talk of regulatory control and export restrictions will put the sh1ts up them.

I would think that this vaccine aside the EU is not a group you would want to be on the wrong side of as a manufacturer.

IRISHSPORTSGUY

is_that_so wrote: »

CureVac have also said they'll produce Pfizer/Biontech if their own candidate falls short this Spring.

I hope it's successful and reduces the reliance on Pfizer. +5 °C refrigeration as advertised is speedier to distribute to the masses than -80°C refrigeration.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Gael23 wrote: »

What sort of capacity have they?

The EU deal was for 225 million doses with an option of 180 million doses.

I would assume that we will get that many doses whether it's curevac's own product or Pfizer's on a license.

Cork2021

Strong words,
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1354047916067991552?s=21

stephenjmcd

So it looks like AstraZeneca might be starting a climb down

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-astrazeneca-exc-idUSKBN29V17E?taid=601008fdc8ffe70001f6609b&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

"Two European officials told Reuters on Tuesday that AstraZeneca at two extraordinary meetings on Monday had offered the EU to bring forward to Feb. 7 the start of deliveries from an initial plan to begin on Feb 15.

One of the sources, briefed on talks, said that AstraZeneca had also revised upward its supply goals for February compared to the cuts announced last week, but the company offered no clarity on supplies for March."

So the above begs the question, they said on Friday we have to cut supplies and now have started raising them again and promising early delivery. To me thats a sign of oh we've been caught here.

Now the article does also say one EU official wouldn't confirm the above, why would they ? Not yet anyway I'd say.

Further on

"The head of Lithuania’s drugs watchdog Gytis Andrulionis told Reuters AstraZeneca on Monday increased its planned supplies for February for Lithuania and other EU countries compared to Fridays cuts, but noted that was still not enough to comply with the EU contract."

Gael23

What redress is open to the EU. Can they demand vaccines are diverted to fulfil the order?

salmocab

stephenjmcd wrote: »

So it looks like AstraZeneca might be starting a climb down

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-astrazeneca-exc-idUSKBN29V17E?taid=601008fdc8ffe70001f6609b&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

"Two European officials told Reuters on Tuesday that AstraZeneca at two extraordinary meetings on Monday had offered the EU to bring forward to Feb. 7 the start of deliveries from an initial plan to begin on Feb 15.

One of the sources, briefed on talks, said that AstraZeneca had also revised upward its supply goals for February compared to the cuts announced last week, but the company offered no clarity on supplies for March."

So the above begs the question, they said on Friday we have to cut supplies and now have started raising them again and promising early delivery. To me thats a sign of oh we've been caught here.

Now the article does also say one EU official wouldn't confirm the above, why would they ? Not yet anyway I'd say.

Further on

"The head of Lithuania’s drugs watchdog Gytis Andrulionis told Reuters AstraZeneca on Monday increased its planned supplies for February for Lithuania and other EU countries compared to Fridays cuts, but noted that was still not enough to comply with the EU contract."

It sounds very much that they are robbing Peter to pay Paul at this stage.

ACitizenErased

Gael23 wrote: »

What redress is open to the EU. Can they demand vaccines are diverted to fulfil the order?

Depends what way the contract is set out, there could be clauses to say what EU can do

seamus

titan18 wrote: »

They make more than a covid vaccine though and i'm sure no company wants to lose a market of the EUs size and purchasing power.

salmocab wrote: »

I would think that this vaccine aside the EU is not a group you would want to be on the wrong side of as a manufacturer.

If you're the only company making something, the EU can't just decide to freeze you out.
"Sorry Timmy, we can't properly treat your cancer because the EU is having an argument with a corporation."

AZ are a big, big company. It's a risky gamble, but this kind of shady nonsense goes on all the time. They have entire teams of lawyers and accountants whose job it is to figure out how to manipulate their existing contracts and squeeze them for profits.

They just usually don't try it in the middle of a pandemic with bodies who have legislative power over them.

is_that_so

Gael23 wrote: »

What redress is open to the EU. Can they demand vaccines are diverted to fulfil the order?

As mentioned earlier, they can just set out to regulate and control the export of vaccines.

CrabRevolution

I find it hard to believe AZ would really try pull a fast one on the EU. Not that they'd have no motivation to, but simply because it'd be such a monumentally stupid thing to do. Why risk the ire and legal reprecussions from such a rich and powerful bloc of countries who will have major say in everything you ever intend on doing both now and in future?

Did they badly misread the situation and assume the EU would just meekly roll over and accept far fewer vaccines than they ordered? Did they think the public would just say it's somehow the EU's fault, leaving AZ blameless? Did they think it wouldn't be noticed despite vaccines being pretty much public issue number one across whole EU at the moment?

So many questions.

Gael23

So there’s nothing they can do really apart from sue AZ?

namloc1980

Gael23 wrote: »

So there’s nothing they can do really apart from sue AZ?

They can tie them up in export red tape.

AdamD

seamus wrote: »

If you're the only company making something, the EU can't just decide to freeze you out.
"Sorry Timmy, we can't properly treat your cancer because the EU is having an argument with a corporation."

AZ are a big, big company. It's a risky gamble, but this kind of shady nonsense goes on all the time. They have entire teams of lawyers and accountants whose job it is to figure out how to manipulate their existing contracts and squeeze them for profits.

They just usually don't try it in the middle of a pandemic with bodies who have legislative power over them.

I think you're underestimating the EU's general level of power. I wouldn't be surprised to see a major stepdown from Astrazenica in the next week.

Gael23

namloc1980 wrote: »

They can tie them up in export red tape.

Will that mean they don’t export then?

Van.Bosch

Gael23 wrote: »

Will that mean they don’t export then?

Red tape of exporting out of the EU, export to member states - no red tape.

MerlinSouthDub

Yevon wrote: »

What motive would AZ have for intentionally sending EU's vaccine supply to the UK knowing that they would need to inform the EU of the shortage?

The most credible theory is that they thought it would be fine i.e. they thought they could divert EU supplies to the UK and still meet the EU delivery schedule. But then they had unexpected manufacturing issues.

IRISHSPORTSGUY

stephenjmcd wrote: »

So it looks like AstraZeneca might be starting a climb down

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-astrazeneca-exc-idUSKBN29V17E?taid=601008fdc8ffe70001f6609b&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

"Two European officials told Reuters on Tuesday that AstraZeneca at two extraordinary meetings on Monday had offered the EU to bring forward to Feb. 7 the start of deliveries from an initial plan to begin on Feb 15.

One of the sources, briefed on talks, said that AstraZeneca had also revised upward its supply goals for February compared to the cuts announced last week, but the company offered no clarity on supplies for March."

So the above begs the question, they said on Friday we have to cut supplies and now have started raising them again and promising early delivery. To me thats a sign of oh we've been caught here.

Now the article does also say one EU official wouldn't confirm the above, why would they ? Not yet anyway I'd say.

Further on

"The head of Lithuania’s drugs watchdog Gytis Andrulionis told Reuters AstraZeneca on Monday increased its planned supplies for February for Lithuania and other EU countries compared to Fridays cuts, but noted that was still not enough to comply with the EU contract."

Ursula rattling a parrot cage and throwing some furniture around the room seems to have worked :cool:

Gael23

IRISHSPORTSGUY wrote: »

Ursula rattling a parrot cage and throwing some furniture around the room seems to have worked :cool:

Only for February. Lots of issues still remain

Hmmzis

On the side of treatments:

Both, Regeneron and Ely-Lilly have reported positive results from their mAB trials:

https://investor.regeneron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/regeneron-reports-positive-interim-data-regen-covtm-antibody/

https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/new-data-show-treatment-lillys-neutralizing-antibodies

Regeneron tracked all infections in their participants and noticed a ~50% reduction of overall infections, infections in the mAB group were all asymptomatic and with 100 fold lower viral loads taking no longer than a week to resolve. The trial size is small here, so that's a limitation.

Ely-Lilly looked primarily at hospitalizations and deaths. All deaths occurred in the placebo group and the mAB group had ~70% less overall risk of hospitalization and/or death.

On a personal note, that's just antibodies, potent ones, but just antibodies acting on their own.

stephenjmcd

Gael23 wrote: »

Only for February. Lots of issues still remain

Well since Friday theres been a fairly quick change and one hell of a climbdown it looks like.

Meetings again tomorrow so who knows what will come out of that.

As was said on Friday, let the dialogue run its course and see where it goes. So far it looks like a climbdown from AstraZeneca and that they'll do everything to supply what they should.

Hmmzis

Yevon wrote: »

I think so too, makes sense.

A really monumental mess up from the company. Now they need to own up to where the supply went, if they exceeded supplies to the UK they now need to divert supplies from them back to the EU. If the manufacturing issues were present across the UK and the EU then we need to split the shortfall pro rata.

Either way, people are being left aggrieved.

Or, they could just ask Serum Institute of India, nicely ($$$).

Malcomex

Hmm

A squabble over vaccines , who could have predicted it !

Countries grabbing vaccines and closing borders

RugbyLad11

Apologies if this has been asked already...

Our current goal is to have something like 70% of the population vaccinated by September. Is the J&J vaccine included in this?

Or could we see even more vaccinated by September, if the J&J single dose vaccine is approved in the coming months?

eoinbn

RugbyLad11 wrote: »

Apologies if this has been asked already...

Our current goal is to have something like 70% of the population vaccinated by September. Is the J&J vaccine included in this?

Or could we see even more vaccinated by September, if the J&J single dose vaccine is approved in the coming months?

With the current supply issues 70% will only happen if everyone executes perfectly from here to September. The chances of that happening are close to zero.

seamie78

as far as I am aware j & j are not included