Astrazeneca/Oxford vaccine approved

[DefTrap]

It's not that difficult mate - France is a different audience to the UK. The response needs to be adjusted to suit or the conspiracy theorists will milk this for all it's worth.

[irie]

It's not that difficult mate - France is a different audience to the UK. The response needs to be adjusted to suit or the conspiracy theorists will milk this for all it's worth.

Too late, the milk is spilt.

[Kneerly Down]

Some very interesting points in this:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/side-effects- ... 24842.html

Apparently the second jab with AZ vaccine is prompting fewer side-effects than the Pfizer vaccine.
I shan't tell my mother, who is getting her second dose of Pfizer in a couple of weeks though!

[irie]

Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, succinctly summed up the current EU situation when he said:

"It doesn't make any sense. The whole thing looks completely crackers. They are changing the rules almost every week."

"They are really damaging people's confidence in vaccines generally - not just the AstraZeneca vaccine."

"They are sitting on a massive stockpile of vaccines that they haven't deployed yet and at the same time they have got a massive wave of the new variants coming across the country. You couldn't make it up."

"If there are clotting problems associated with the vaccines - I am not saying there are, but if there were - they are at a very tiny level compared with the problems you get if you get the disease. If you want to die of a clot, get Covid."

[Hoonercat]

Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, succinctly summed up the current EU situation when he said:

"It doesn't make any sense. The whole thing looks completely crackers. They are changing the rules almost every week."

"They are really damaging people's confidence in vaccines generally - not just the AstraZeneca vaccine."

"They are sitting on a massive stockpile of vaccines that they haven't deployed yet and at the same time they have got a massive wave of the new variants coming across the country. You couldn't make it up."

"If there are clotting problems associated with the vaccines - I am not saying there are, but if there were - they are at a very tiny level compared with the problems you get if you get the disease. If you want to die of a clot, get Covid."

He was referring to France, not the EU, and their decision not to give the jab to under 55's.

[wheelnut]

Some very interesting points in this:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/side-effects- ... 24842.html

Apparently the second jab with AZ vaccine is prompting fewer side-effects than the Pfizer vaccine.
I shan't tell my mother, who is getting her second dose of Pfizer in a couple of weeks though!

Mrs W got her second Pfizer jab back in Jan - it wiped her out for two days. Worse than the first one.

[wheelnut]

Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, succinctly summed up the current EU situation when he said:
with the problems you get if you get the disease. If you want to die of a clot, get Covid."

Macron seems to be doing his best to make Boris look almost competent.

[DefTrap]

Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, succinctly summed up the current EU situation when he said:

"It doesn't make any sense. The whole thing looks completely crackers. They are changing the rules almost every week."

"They are really damaging people's confidence in vaccines generally - not just the AstraZeneca vaccine."

"They are sitting on a massive stockpile of vaccines that they haven't deployed yet and at the same time they have got a massive wave of the new variants coming across the country. You couldn't make it up."

"If there are clotting problems associated with the vaccines - I am not saying there are, but if there were - they are at a very tiny level compared with the problems you get if you get the disease. If you want to die of a clot, get Covid."

I reckon professors who genuinely say "you couldn't make it up" are ready for retirement.

[Mussels]

Quantas has joined the growing list of travel companies saying customers must have had vaccines.
This will increase political pressure to make more vaccines abailable so people can go on holiday, I don't like that idea as it will bring out selfishness in under 50s. If you can still afford a holiday but can't go where you want think yourself lucky and not opressed by a tyrannical controlling government.
I really don't see foreign holidays happening this year or at least not until the end of summer.

[irie]

Looks like AstraZeneca has finally had enough of being the whipping boy for the EU's vaccination failures.

(from the Telegraph so probably behind a paywall so quoted in full).

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... de-threat/

AstraZeneca has criticised the European Union’s threat to blockade vaccine supply to the UK, claiming member states are sitting on up to 12 million unused jabs.

Insiders also said an EU export ban on sending Covid-19 vaccines to the UK would not work, not least because Britain is currently manufacturing almost its entire supply.

A small number of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine batches are being supplied via India, and almost none in the EU.

The pharmaceutical giant has been stung by criticism from Brussels and member states over the roll out on the Continent of the vaccine, developed in the UK. 

Sources at AstraZeneca appear puzzled by a threat issued last week by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, to ban vaccine exports.

Pressure was ramped up further on Sunday when Mairead McGuinness, the EU European commissioner for financial services, refused to rule out a blockade, telling the BBC: “Everything is on the table.” 

However, a well-placed source involved in the Oxford/AstraZeneca manufacture said the EU only had itself to blame and was sitting on almost 13 million vaccine doses that it had failed to get into people’s arms.

“The EU has not got its act together in distributing the vaccine,” said the source. “The EU is sitting on stockpiles of over 12 million doses. The issue is not just about supply. This is about administration. It is about putting jabs in people’s arms.”

Official figures released on Thursday from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an official EU body, showed 64.1 million doses had been supplied to member states up to March 14, but only 51.7 million doses had been administered.

That amounts to about a fifth of the Covid-19 doses so far acquired by the EU.

By contrast, the UK has given first vaccinations to more than 27.6 million people, more than half the adult population. The UK broke its record for vaccinations on Sunday, delivering 873,784 jabs in a single day.

The AstraZeneca source it was difficult to see how an EU export threat could have any effect on UK vaccine supply, at least in the short term.

Out of 100 million doses ordered by the UK from AstraZeneca over 18 months, about 90 per cent will be manufactured in the UK, at two plants (one in Oxford and another in Staffordshire).

The vaccine is then ‘filled and finished’ at a bottling plant in Wrexham in north Wales, ready for distribution to vaccination centres.

Vaccine doses are also imported from India, which has caused short term supply issues, and there remains a possibility of doses being sent to the UK from plants on the European mainland.

But the AstraZeneca source added: “The vast, vast majority is made in the UK. There is an international supply chain but that exists when supply gets ‘lumpy’.

"It can give us flexibility. But we really don’t understand this threat of an export ban from Ursula von der Leyen. It sounds like political posturing.”

The EU has been criticised for being slow off the mark in ordering both the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab and also the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, some months after the UK and US.

Some member states, including France, have also sowed confusion by first banning the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab for the elderly and now insisting it be limited to the over-55s.

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, has warned that any attempt by the EU to block vaccine exports would be “counterproductive” and said “the grown-up thing would be for the European Commission, and some of the European leaders, to work together and roll out that supply".

The EU has complained it expects to receive about 30 million AstraZeneca doses in the first quarter of the year, down from an agreed 40 million, and much lower than an original target of 90 million.

AstraZeneca has suffered production issues at its continental European plants but has blamed in part a delayed order from the EU which meant its contractors were not up to speed on the manufacturing processes by the start of the year.

However, one senior European official told Agence France-Presse: "There is a problem specific to the group [AstraZeneca] adding there is "a great suspicion in European circles that AstraZeneca has sold the same doses several times".

The suggestion was dismissed as nonsense by AstraZeneca.

Jeremy Brown, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, has waded into the row over Europe’s vaccine roll out.

“I don't think the vaccine committees in the different countries are making their decisions because of politics, but I do think they have been misguided in the way they've approached this,” he said, questioning the decision by regulators to halt the AstraZeneca rollout over fears it caused blood clots only to start the programme again last week. 

Strange, the link doesn't work any more. Any guesses why not? Answers on Berlaymont headed notepaper please.

Edit 10.03 pm: link is still on Telegraph website so someone must have shitted a brick.

AstraZeneca insider dismisses EU's blockade threat
The Telegraph › news › 2021/03/21 › astrazeneca-accuses-eu-stockp...
3 hours ago ... AstraZeneca insider dismisses EU's blockade threat. An EU export ban on sending vaccines to the UK would not work, not least because [/quote[

[Noggin]

I've got my dates for being jabbed!!! Woohoo

Friday afternoon then 23rd April No idea which I'll get but guessing it'll be the AZ just cos it's easier to ship/ store/hold and we are quite a long way from major centres. Here's hoping


(I've been trying to get the jab partly cos I would like to visit the UK in May, if travel is allowed, and being vaccinated will probably make all that easier!!)

[DefTrap]

Friday afternoon then 23rd April No idea which I'll get but guessing it'll be the AZ just cos it's easier to ship/ store/hold and we are quite a long way from major centres. Here's hoping

Great news!

No logic to the scheduling of the 2nd jab then (who knew? ) as I had my first 10 days ago and my 2nd isn't scheduled until 'after 13th May' according to my form. I'll get the missus to go down the surgery and give the doctor a rocket about it.

I like your enthusiasm for travel to the UK in May but it's not looking likely at the minute.

[Noggin]

Friday afternoon then 23rd April No idea which I'll get but guessing it'll be the AZ just cos it's easier to ship/ store/hold and we are quite a long way from major centres. Here's hoping

Great news!

No logic to the scheduling of the 2nd jab then (who knew? ) as I had my first 10 days ago and my 2nd isn't scheduled until 'after 13th May' according to my form. I'll get the missus to go down the surgery and give the doctor a rocket about it.

I like your enthusiasm for travel to the UK in May but it's not looking likely at the minute.

Hmmm - 4 or 8 week gap. Do you think it depends on the vaccine? Which did you have?


TBF - I don't want to do lots of visiting or socialising! Just want to drive my Transit over, leave it and get the train back!! LOL And my bro will have been fully vaccinated by then so might be able to pick me up and drive me to the train with minimal risks all round Just crossing fingers really! Know I might have to wait longer but May would be pretty good!!

[DefTrap]

Hmmm - 4 or 8 week gap. Do you think it depends on the vaccine? Which did you have?


TBF - I don't want to do lots of visiting or socialising! Just want to drive my Transit over, leave it and get the train back!! LOL And my bro will have been fully vaccinated by then so might be able to pick me up and drive me to the train with minimal risks all round Just crossing fingers really! Know I might have to wait longer but May would be pretty good!!

I had the AZ one. The whole system over here is a bit make-it-up-as-you-go-along. The vaccine-centre online booking system has gone down the whazoo (you can't get an online appt) so you have to call them up repeatedly - where's the sense in that?. Or you circumvent the system and call up the GP, who seem to be offering a different way in - and they're a bit more malleable as they know your face (and mine has seen other areas and presumably doesn't want a repeat performance). I'm pretty sure I got my first jab way in advance of my priority.

[Supermofo]

Looks like AstraZeneca has finally had enough of being the whipping boy for the EU's vaccination failures.

(from the Telegraph so probably behind a paywall so quoted in full).

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... de-threat/


Insiders also said an EU export ban on sending Covid-19 vaccines to the UK would not work, not least because Britain is currently manufacturing almost its entire supply. 

I thought the threat was the the EU would cut the UK off from Pfizer vaccines not AZ ones. As AZ say the UK is fairly self sufficient with the AZ one, but a ban on export of Pfizer would hurt surely?

On one level I get it (what the EU are doing) but their issue is with the companies, not the UK. Effectively they are admitting there is bugger all they can do to those companies so they are threating the UK instead. From the sounds of it they completely got their contracts wrong and are covering that by making threats to countries that didn't.

[Noggin]

Hmmm - 4 or 8 week gap. Do you think it depends on the vaccine? Which did you have?


TBF - I don't want to do lots of visiting or socialising! Just want to drive my Transit over, leave it and get the train back!! LOL And my bro will have been fully vaccinated by then so might be able to pick me up and drive me to the train with minimal risks all round Just crossing fingers really! Know I might have to wait longer but May would be pretty good!!

I had the AZ one. The whole system over here is a bit make-it-up-as-you-go-along. The vaccine-centre online booking system has gone down the whazoo (you can't get an online appt) so you have to call them up repeatedly - where's the sense in that?. Or you circumvent the system and call up the GP, who seem to be offering a different way in - and they're a bit more malleable as they know your face (and mine has seen other areas and presumably doesn't want a repeat performance). I'm pretty sure I got my first jab way in advance of my priority.

Sadly I don't think my GP would be much help! I was lucky to get a locum and the prescription from him!!

None of the centres in this area 73/74 take bookings online - the system says to call. But I was quite surprised to get through on the phone this morning and get appointments so easily!! It did ring a while, but once it was answered all was sorted quickly

I told the pharmacie that I have the appointments in the valley - she said that they only had 6 people in resort on the list that were eligible (at the moment) for the vaccine and they needed ten to order it to the shop. She was pretty happy for me that I got the RDV in Bourg, but I'd guess others on the list will be miffed as it's one less on the list now !!

[irie]

Looks like AstraZeneca has finally had enough of being the whipping boy for the EU's vaccination failures.

(from the Telegraph so probably behind a paywall so quoted in full).

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... de-threat/


Insiders also said an EU export ban on sending Covid-19 vaccines to the UK would not work, not least because Britain is currently manufacturing almost its entire supply. 

I thought the threat was the the EU would cut the UK off from Pfizer vaccines not AZ ones. As AZ say the UK is fairly self sufficient with the AZ one, but a ban on export of Pfizer would hurt surely?

On one level I get it (what the EU are doing) but their issue is with the companies, not the UK. Effectively they are admitting there is bugger all they can do to those companies so they are threating the UK instead. From the sounds of it they completely got their contracts wrong and are covering that by making threats to countries that didn't.

A problem for the EU is that a key ingredient for Pfizer vaccine production (a specialised lipid) is manufactured by Croda International which is based in Snaith, East Yorkshire. If the did EU ban exports of Pfizer vaccine to the UK it would then risk a UK tit-for-tat export ban on the Croda lipid without which Pfizer vaccine production would stop in a matter of weeks. Oops.

[Hoonercat]

Looks like AstraZeneca has finally had enough of being the whipping boy for the EU's vaccination failures.

(from the Telegraph so probably behind a paywall so quoted in full).

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... de-threat/


Insiders also said an EU export ban on sending Covid-19 vaccines to the UK would not work, not least because Britain is currently manufacturing almost its entire supply. 

I thought the threat was the the EU would cut the UK off from Pfizer vaccines not AZ ones. As AZ say the UK is fairly self sufficient with the AZ one, but a ban on export of Pfizer would hurt surely?

On one level I get it (what the EU are doing) but their issue is with the companies, not the UK. Effectively they are admitting there is bugger all they can do to those companies so they are threating the UK instead. From the sounds of it they completely got their contracts wrong and are covering that by making threats to countries that didn't.

A problem for the EU is that a key ingredient for Pfizer vaccine production (a specialised lipid) is manufactured by Croda International which is based in Snaith, East Yorkshire. If the did EU ban exports of Pfizer vaccine to the UK it would then risk a UK tit-for-tat export ban on the Croda lipid without which Pfizer vaccine production would stop in a matter of weeks. Oops.

Absolutely no chance of that happening, try putting some thought into these posts instead of regurgitating what you've read elsewhere. Oh, and the UK isn't the only country where Croda produce the lipids for Pfizer.

[Noggin]

Hmmm - 4 or 8 week gap. Do you think it depends on the vaccine? Which did you have?


TBF - I don't want to do lots of visiting or socialising! Just want to drive my Transit over, leave it and get the train back!! LOL And my bro will have been fully vaccinated by then so might be able to pick me up and drive me to the train with minimal risks all round Just crossing fingers really! Know I might have to wait longer but May would be pretty good!!

I had the AZ one. The whole system over here is a bit make-it-up-as-you-go-along. The vaccine-centre online booking system has gone down the whazoo (you can't get an online appt) so you have to call them up repeatedly - where's the sense in that?. Or you circumvent the system and call up the GP, who seem to be offering a different way in - and they're a bit more malleable as they know your face (and mine has seen other areas and presumably doesn't want a repeat performance). I'm pretty sure I got my first jab way in advance of my priority.

Ok, seems like I'm probably getting the Pfizer - apparently they give the second dose 4 weeks after the first. If it's AZ it's 8 - 12 weeks after the first!!

I'll have to wait and see, but it seems likely that it's Pfizer

[irie]

Eric Mamer, EU Commission spokesman ... confirmed that even if the Commission were to block exports, it did not currently have legal authority to seize unshipped vaccines and repurpose them for EU countries. Such a move would require additional emergency measures and could risk violating World Trade Organization rules, as well as further undermine the EU’s reputation as a champion of international rules-based free trade.

So whereas vaccines can be prevented from leaving EU countries, currently nothing can be done with them.

Looking more and more like a dead cat strategy.

Now I wonder what happened to the 250,000 AZ doses that Italy stopped from leaving the country ...