What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

mick087

mick087 wrote: »

Most of Europe has done rubbish.

We should not have this league table of deaths.

Yes the UK government has many questions to answers to its citizens.

Lets not by pointing fingers let our own elected government and our representatives the EU commission blind us from there roles in this nightmare.

It doesn't matter how good bad or indifferent the Irish government has done, as long as it can be spun that they've done better than the Tories, that is all some people will care about.

As more and more people get frustrated with the severe lack of any sort of a coherent plan, the louder the cries of "Look over there" will be.

brickster69

40,000 doses thrown away in Hamburg

https://twitter.com/habichthorn/status/1386911182905348098

deeperlearning

A remarkably similar story to complaints made by GPs in the UK:

https://www.gponline.com/gps-defy-calls-discard-covid-19-vaccine-second-dose-jabs-continue/article/1706300

fly_agaric

Aegir wrote: »

It doesn't matter how good bad or indifferent the Irish government has done, as long as it can be spun that they've done better than the Tories, that is all some people will care about.
As more and more people get frustrated with the severe lack of any sort of a coherent plan, the louder the cries of "Look over there" will be.

You have a point about some people posting here or elsewhere on this site about UK politics/comparing Ireland to the UK (in Covid response or other things), but it is undermined by the fact you are just the other side of the coin as regards this country (evidenced by your posts).
You posted a big screed in thread earlier denouncing the Irish govt./HSE etc. for a load of stuff.
It was all quite one-eyed and distorted.

fly_agaric

fly_agaric wrote: »

You have a point about some people posting here or elsewhere on this site about UK politics/comparing Ireland to the UK (in Covid response or other things), but it is undermined by the fact you are just the other side of the coin as regards this country (evidenced by your posts).
You posted a big screed in thread earlier denouncing the Irish govt./HSE etc. for a load of stuff.
It was all quite one-eyed and distorted.

Not really, I live, work and pay taxes here, so the actions of the HSE and government have a direct impact on me and my immediate family.

deeperlearning

So that somehow justifies your tedious and nonsensical ranting.

fly_agaric

Aegir wrote: »

Not really, I live, work and pay taxes here, so the actions of the HSE and government have a direct impact on me and my immediate family.

Fair enough. Well we're all just behind a screen here. Some of those criticising the UK could be living there too, or else have some personal connections.

There were distortions + hyperbole in what you posted, some of it quite similar to exaggerations regarding UK (as regards corruption in government or failures in the Covid response) that you call out.

No point going into it line by line, will just takes thing further off topic.

Dyr

OOOPS:

"Belgium was cautioned ahead of time that the EU's contract with drugmaker AstraZeneca didn't include harsh consequences if the company failed to deliver coronavirus vaccines on schedule, according to an opinion the consultancy Deloitte prepared for the Belgian government"


https://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-was-warned-eus-astrazeneca-contract-lacked-teeth-documents/

Professor Moriarty

fly_agaric wrote: »

Fair enough. Well we're all just behind a screen here. Some of those criticising the UK could be living there too, or else have some personal connections.

There were distortions + hyperbole in what you posted, some of it quite similar to exaggerations regarding UK (as regards corruption in government or failures in the Covid response) that you call out.

No point going into it line by line, will just takes thing further off topic.

In order to assess how well or badly Ireland is doing regarding mortality rates, one must compare. Who better to compare with than our nearest neighbours? So, on average, Ireland's mortality rate per capita is 40% less than the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands. Just a fact.

fly_agaric

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

In order to assess how well or badly Ireland is doing regarding mortality rates, one must compare. Who better to compare with than our nearest neighbours? So, on average, Ireland's mortality rate per capita is 40% less than the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands. Just a fact.

I know mortality rate is lower here (didn't know exact %). Think you are getting the wrong end of the stick.
There are some areas I can think of where UK is not a great comparison for Ireland as regards Covid (these have been gone into already) but don't believe it would account for the difference, so that leaves the policies (harsher and longer restrictions that came somewhat earlier here).

Not to put words in his mouth...but "exaggerations" I was thinking of that annoy Aegir (relating to the UK / UK govt.) are that it is somehow uniquely bad as regards European Covid-19 response or for ruling party corruption, accusations that get thrown about it is now a "rogue state" under Boris Johnson and the like.

moritz1234

In my opinion there should be three criteria for how a country is doing (not in any order)
*Deaths
*Vaccine rollout
*Opening the economy

deeperlearning

moritz1234 wrote: »

In my opinion there should be three criteria for how a country is doing (not in any order)
*Deaths
*Vaccine rollout
*Opening the economy

There are only two criteria in that case.

Vaccine rollout on its own is meaningless. Chile had administered about 59 doses per 100 people, a higher rate than the United States (50) or the United Kingdom (56). Yet cases surged and hospitalisations and deaths increased dramatically when the economy opened.

Reduced deaths and a successful opening of the economy are the two criteria that matter. A vaccine rollout is only useful if it contributes to improving these. If not, it is meaningless.

Enzokk

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

Our nearest neighbour as well as France and Spain are highly industrialised countries with big populations and large urban conurbations often packed closely together.
They're also major global transport hubs.
Ireland is essentially a rural country with no large industries and population concentrated mainly in Dublin and surrounds.
Comparisons like this are pointless.

Could we just say comparisons are useless as there will be all sorts of differences that would make it pointless? Remember when the UK was big on showing death numbers as an comparison, until they started overtaking all those other countries? They also argued then it was a useless comparison. Seems it is only useful if it proves your point...;)

Enzokk

Enzokk wrote: »

Could we just say comparisons are useless as there will be all sorts of differences that would make it pointless? Remember when the UK was big on showing death numbers as an comparison, until they started overtaking all those other countries? They also argued then it was a useless comparison. Seems it is only useful if it proves your point...;)

Comparisons are useless.

I think ultimately there is a degree of inevitability to all this and as said previously, a lot of that will depend on population density and urbanization. How the **** do you socially distance if you live on the sixth floor of an apartment building, work in Tesco and get the tube to work every day?

Winters

I wonder where Ireland and the EU would would be right now if the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine had been delivered as per the contract schedule.

Incredible to think that the contracts would have made AZ the largest supplier with 300m vaccines ordered for 2021 in comparison to the 200m vaccines originally ordered from Pfizer.

That would have positioned AZ as a supplier of approximately 50% of all vaccines and not the 15% to 20% split of the current deliveries. It would have reduced the Pfizer split to 35%.

You can see why EU took the decisions it did regarding reviewing exports and taking its legal case.

Does it come back to the Oxford decision to choose the lesser experienced AZ over MSD? Who knows but we certainly would be in a better place in terms of % population vaccinated.

Assuming the AZ Q1 shortfall of 90 million doses (120-30) equates to 900K doses for Ireland up to end of March. Now where it gets complicated is if the AZ use would have still fallen into the over 50/60 and under 70 bracket due to lack of test data and the recent blood clot rulings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/world/europe/european-union-pfizer-von-der-leyen-coronavirus-vaccine.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

You could also say thank **** BioNtech chose to partner with Pfizer.

Frank Bullitt

The media hysteria over AZ has hot home for me. My GF is a teach here in Canada has has been offered AZ, she is beside herself with the panic and said to me last night "I don't want covid and I don't want to die from AZ".

I thought being offered a vaccine would bring happiness to people, but it has terrified her to the core.

jimmycrackcorm

Frank Bullitt wrote: »

The media hysteria over AZ has hot home for me. My GF is a teach here in Canada has has been offered AZ, she is beside herself with the panic and said to me last night "I don't want covid and I don't want to die from AZ".

I thought being offered a vaccine would bring happiness to people, but it has terrified her to the core.

What's her opinion on blood clots associated with the pill?

El Vino

The media hysteria over AZ has hot home for me. My GF is a teach here in Canada has has been offered AZ, she is beside herself with the panic and said to me last night "I don't want covid and I don't want to die from AZ".

I have sympathy for her, I would be tempted to ask her doctor for the latest advice. It is easy to say the blood clots are rare and they absolutely are, I would still check what the exact symptoms are so in the tiny chance your girlfriend has it can be detected and treated successfully. My understanding is detected early the condition can be treated. The early issues were late detection and conventional clotting treatment with Heparin made things worse

Timberrrrrrrr

Frank Bullitt wrote: »

The media hysteria over AZ has hot home for me. My GF is a teach here in Canada has has been offered AZ, she is beside herself with the panic and said to me last night "I don't want covid and I don't want to die from AZ".

I thought being offered a vaccine would bring happiness to people, but it has terrified her to the core.

Why would she die from having the AZ vaccine? :rolleyes:

is_that_so

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Why would she die from having the AZ vaccine? :rolleyes:

Some people really do have a genuine fear of vaccines. Two in my circle have feelings similar to that lady if nowhere near that extreme. Not everyone has been able to deal with COVID with scorn and bravado. It's one more thing we'll likely have to fix after we get through vaccinations, the trail of mental damage from it.

Winters

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

People might also be wondering why the EU should choose to sue the manufacturer of a vaccine when some of its leaders such as Macron have spent so long questioning its effectiveness leading to many doses lying unused in their countries as vax hesitancy sets in.
Deflecting attention from their own failures perhaps ?

The reason the EU are taking AZ to court is because AZ have delivered 25% (30 million vaccines) of the 120 million vaccines that the EU contracted them to deliver to end of March 2021. Whatever about 'best efforts', 90 million vaccines not delivered is a significant shortfall.

They will probably also do the same after Q2. As it stands AZ have predicted they will deliver only 40% (70 million vaccines) of the 180 million vaccines to end of June 2021.

it's effectiveness, while in debate, is not being questioned in the legal arguments.

Timberrrrrrrr

is_that_so wrote: »

Some people really do have a genuine fear of vaccines. Two in my circle have feelings similar to that lady if nowhere near that extreme. Not everyone has been able to deal with COVID with scorn and bravado. It's one more thing we'll likely have to fix after we get through vaccinations, the trail of mental damage from it.

But would the same people be afraid of taking the pill? Popping a paracetamol for a headache? Getting pregnant? All of these have a higher risk of causing blood clots than the AZ vaccine.

Frank Bullitt

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

What's her opinion on blood clots associated with the pill?

We went over that, got the impression that she knows deep down that AZ is very safe and the pros outweigh the cons. That is my hope anyway.

Enzokk

Aegir wrote: »

Comparisons are useless.

I think ultimately there is a degree of inevitability to all this and as said previously, a lot of that will depend on population density and urbanization. How the **** do you socially distance if you live on the sixth floor of an apartment building, work in Tesco and get the tube to work every day?

Next time you jump to compare how terrible Ireland is doing as well, remember your post.

As for what you should if you live in those conditions, I don't know. How has Hong Kong fared? Seems like it will be almost impossible to keep people living in a dense urban environment from getting Covid and having massive deaths.

Frank Bullitt

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Why would she die from having the AZ vaccine? :rolleyes:

She is afraid of the clots and there was a death in Quebec from it, or associated with it anyway.

Believe me I know, if they told me there was a shot of AZ for me, I would be there in a blink.

is_that_so

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

But would the same people be afraid of taking the pill? Popping a paracetamol for a headache? Getting pregnant? All of these have a higher risk of causing blood clots than the AZ vaccine.

People will do what they do, including fretting about why other people do things. This has changed us and some may find the reverse journey very tough including dealing with their concerns about the effect of vaccinations or certain vaccines.

Professor Moriarty

Enzokk wrote: »

Next time you jump to compare how terrible Ireland is doing as well, remember your post.

As for what you should if you live in those conditions, I don't know. How has Hong Kong fared? Seems like it will be almost impossible to keep people living in a dense urban environment from getting Covid and having massive deaths.

Indeed. Singapore has a mortality rate of 5 per million. Ireland's is 196 times greater.

secman

Frank Bullitt wrote: »

The media hysteria over AZ has hot home for me. My GF is a teach here in Canada has has been offered AZ, she is beside herself with the panic and said to me last night "I don't want covid and I don't want to die from AZ".

I thought being offered a vaccine would bring happiness to people, but it has terrified her to the core.

A teacher ! God almighty i despair....

Bass Reeves

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Indeed. Singapore has a mortality rate of 5 per million. Ireland's is 196 times greater.

What is there excess deaths??? Positive/ negative. A load them f countries are counting selectively

brickster69

secman wrote: »

A teacher ! God almighty i despair....

I presume she is under 85. Italy and France are having 200 deaths a day in over 85's and were told by the Government they could not take it when the wave was starting, and most of them are too petrified to take it anyway now.

Hopefully things go ok for her.

fly_agaric

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

I have no problem with them trying to get the money back.
But retrospectively trying to enforce poorly-written contracts overseen by a failed German defence minister and a third-rate Cypriot politician ?
Good luck with that.
You might wish to read the blog of that notable EU cheerleader Guy Verhofstadt - even he has distanced himself from the EU's cack-handed vaccine procurement programme.

It's funny, some time ago on this thread people were claiming that the EU wasn't and would likely never take legal action because they had no case and just unfairly snipe at the company in public to deflect from their failure. Now they are attacked for going to court (for same reasons).

I think (IMO) it's more about the principle of it than money, setting down a marker for future MNCs that may weigh up their options and decide it is a very good idea to privilege competing customers over the EU when they have to let people down, or to promise so much to everyone when perhaps they should have been more realistic or modest. God knows MNCs don't lack for power or arrogance in our modern world and it seems (to me) like this only gets worse as time passes.

About the "failed German defence minister and a third-rate Cypriot politician" procuring vaccines in the Commission, it has nothing to do with it and comes across a bit "Fog in channel Continent cut off", or "the wogs begin at Calais!"

Ardillaun

Got my first AZ jab today in Canada today, thank God.

Humans tend to overestimate certain risks and undercall others. It is true that vaccines do pose a tiny risk upfront and that healthy people can be killed by it, but how come we don’t worry so much about the hazards of driving to get the jab? Or driving anywhere for that matter?

McGiver

Knuckles Kennedy wrote:

It's hard to see how Ursula Von Der Leyen has performed anything other than poorly - she assumed personal control of vaccine procurement negotiations and the less said about invoking Article 16 the better. I'm just not sure whether suing AZ is a wise move - it'll be interesting to see what comes out in the wash.

Art 16 wasn't triggered.

Pretzill

Frank Bullitt wrote: »

She is afraid of the clots and there was a death in Quebec from it, or associated with it anyway.

Believe me I know, if they told me there was a shot of AZ for me, I would be there in a blink.

I can understand her fear, if she can chat with a healthcare professional and read the leaflet before it should put her mind at rest. It's really a one in a million side effect and they are trying to make sure anyone who sees symptoms associated know what to be aware of in the very unlikely event.

If she's vunerable to it covid would be far, far worse. The best vaccine is the first one your offered.

astrofool

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

That's because of the outcry from our government.
It was a debacle for the EU whose unity in vaccines was undermined somewhat when Germany went ahead and negotiated its own side deal for 50 million vaccine shots - other states subsequently took their lead.
Fingers crossed Ireland's vaccine programme continues its improving record into May and June which I expect it to as more vaccines come on stream and the AZ restrictions have been relaxed.

Hang on, you said it was invoked, you can't backtrack that quickly.

You can amend your statement to "It was almost invoked".

It's also no surprise that the UK supply has been "constrained" while EU supply has been steadily increasing since that debacle.

astrofool

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

I wrote invoking rather than invoked.
There is a difference.
And the EU supply has been steadily increasing because it started off from a very low base.

Good to see you're invoking a walk back of that statement then.

Dyr

McGiver wrote: »

Art 16 wasn't triggered.

No matter how much you try to memory hole it, it happened.

https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/ursula-von-der-leyen--president-of-the-european-commission-statement-on-triggering-article-16-of-northern-ireland-protocol_EP110960-V_v


Once again, we found out where we stood in the grand scheme of things with the EU.

robinph

astrofool wrote: »

Hang on, you said it was invoked, you can't backtrack that quickly.

You can amend your statement to "It was almost invoked".

It's also no surprise that the UK supply has been "constrained" while EU supply has been steadily increasing since that debacle.

The UK rate of vaccination hasn't changed by much at all. Towards the end of March they were hitting upwards of three quarters of a million jabs a day and nearly a million on one day, but either side of that bumper week it been consistently around half a million a day.

What has changed is the ratio between 1st and 2nd jabs. Nothing to show that delivery was impacted in any significant way.

dwayneshintzy

Bass Reeves wrote: »

What is there excess deaths??? Positive/ negative. A load them f countries are counting selectively

Ah come on, are you seriously suggesting that places like Singapore and Hong Kong are undercounting COVID deaths by the tens of thousands? And that people won't have noticed?

Winters

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

This is correct.
At the beginning of April the NHS warned of a potential shortfall due to supply issues but in reality this hasn't happened.
And as you say the ratio has changed to ensure more second jabs are delivered.
I presume they have specific targets of when they could run out of supplies before the limit of time between jabs is reached.

Im inclined to think the EU supply rate will surpass the UK insofar that our 1st jab to 2nd jab ratio will remain higher for longer. I wonder if the UK expected to be doing as many more 2nd jabs than 1st jabs at this point? It must have slowed down their 1st jab rate for the 30-35 bracket considerably.

IRISHSPORTSGUY

165,000 doses will be arriving tomorrow. Good stuff.

robinph

Winters wrote: »

Im inclined to think the EU supply rate will surpass the UK insofar that our 1st jab to 2nd jab ratio will remain higher for longer. I wonder if the UK expected to be doing as many more 2nd jabs than 1st jabs at this point? It must have slowed down their 1st jab rate for the 30-35 bracket considerably.

The UK has gone from 45 to 44 to 42 as the category open for anyone across the country to book this week. Various individual regions are already doing 30 or even lower in some cases depending on the spread of the population age range locally.

It was mentioned in one of the stats ages ago before they even finished the top 9 categories of priority groups that 20% of the 18-50 age group had already been vaccinated just by being in one of the other groups before they began opening it up for general access just based on age.

Frank Bullitt

secman wrote: »

A teacher ! God almighty i despair....

What does that mean?

is_that_so

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

Yup, I read in the Sunday Times at the weekend that the NHS will be inviting everyone in the 30+ age group to apply online for vaccines by the end of this week.

It's great what you can do when you have supplies. We should be knocking on that door in about 6 weeks.

is_that_so

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

I agree.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask why we and much of Europe are so far behind.

Supplies is largely why and the company named in this thread. We are putting the vast majority of ours into arms within 7 days, save the surplus we need to hold.

fly_agaric

is_that_so wrote: »

Supplies is largely why and the company named in this thread. We are putting the vast majority of ours into arms within 7 days, save the surplus we need to hold.

I recall one of the Europhobic posters on the thread speculated that the Commission/EU were holding back or hiding the vaccines somehow. :rolleyes:

It may be that the Commisioners or MEPs drink the AZ vaccines with dinner as a delicacy, kind of like the Chinese eating rare animals etc. that started all this off in the first place!

Tippbhoy1

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

The legal action the EU is bringing against AZ in a Belgian court will determine who was to blame for those lack of supplies.
It will come down to an interpretation of contract law and I'm not entirely convinced the EU is going to succeed.
Certainly Guy Verhofstadt - who would have the EU written through him like a stick of rock if you cut him in half - thinks the EU was at fault in not making them watertight.

Just because a supplier might be able to worm out of a contract doesn’t mean they suddenly become blameless ffs.

Tippbhoy1

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

Don't forget that this is a supplier that is currently delivering non-profit low-cost vaccines to more than 100 countries around the world, many of them poor and unable to afford the Pfizer and other jabs, being sued by an organisation whose leading countries have spent weeks questioning the effectiveness of the vaccine leading to millions of doses being unused in their countries.
I'm not sure the EU has considered the optics in all of this.

It depends on what optic you look through. All these little sound bytes of how great AZ are as if they’re doing this for charity are pathetic. They’ve licenced out something that was licenced to them, with a short term “at cost” that they can choose when to expire. Unfortunately for them, their gamble on the boosters and entering the vaccine market as a serious player are toast. If the EU never heard of AZ we would have been better off here in Ireland. A joke of a company.

is_that_so

Knuckles Kennedy wrote: »

The legal action the EU is bringing against AZ in a Belgian court will determine who was to blame for those lack of supplies.
It will come down to an interpretation of contract law and I'm not entirely convinced the EU is going to succeed.
Certainly Guy Verhofstadt - who would have the EU written through him like a stick of rock if you cut him in half - thinks the EU was at fault in not making them watertight.

They never had them to give to the EU is what was the cause of it and they are still at it this week. Once that legal dance has been completed, regardless of how it turns out the EU will not order any more from them. In the real world this is an unreliable supplier you would not do business with again.

They are a company who've never made a vaccine and but for Hancock's insistence on guaranteed deliveries Oxford would have paired up with a real vaccine maker, Merck. It's also notable that they've never applied for FDA approval, through their own messed up trial data and the US is now happily giving away stock it will never use. In our case, once the over 50s are done that's the end of it here.

Thank God for Pfizer is all I say!