BBC news going full on Rule Britannia. UK vac rates set to âsky rocketâ.
Followed by report from Germany with padlocked vaccination hub, pensioners in tears.
This whole fcuking EU thing is a total cod.
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We can trade vaccines for food.
John Bull started this
And the EU had precisely zero orders with Novavax.
Another massive blow for the germans
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CORONAVIRUS
Coronavirus: The nimble vaccine task force that left global rivals trailing in its wake
Kate Bingham, a venture capitalist, took the job of leading the vaccine task force
JOHN NGUYEN/JNVISUALS
Sean OâNeill, Chief Reporter | Bruno Waterfield, Brussels
Friday January 29 2021, 12.01am GMT, The Times
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When Boris Johnson called Kate Bingham last April and asked her to lead Britainâs vaccine task force the brief was simple: âStop people from dying.â
After thinking it over for 24 hours, Ms Bingham took the (unpaid) job and set about it at speed. A biochemist turned venture capitalist, she assembled a small team of private sector experts who knew the science, industry and logistics of making it all work.
Within a fortnight they had drawn up a shortlist of 23 vaccines from four different vaccine technologies. The key criterion, given the priority of saving lives, was not to find the perfect vaccine but the one (or ones) that would reduce the severity of infection and be ready for market within a year.
Britain was close to a deal to secure supplies of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine but the task force had to set up meetings with other candidates. Using personal contacts in the industry, members ensured they âgot in the roomâ with the pharmaceutical companies.
Those personal contacts were crucial because Britain was a relatively minor player. The Trump administration was trying to snap up jabs and the EU had responded to such vaccine nationalism by deciding to act as a bloc to counter the USâs purchasing power.
The EUâs early work bore fruit. Four countries â Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands â formed the Inclusive Vaccines Alliance to lead negotiations and by June had a pre-purchase agreement with Astrazeneca.
The EU offered Britain the chance to join its procurement effort but Ms Bingham turned it down. The EUâs conditions were too restrictive: Britain would have had to stop its independent negotiations and would not have been able to open talks with new candidates.
âWe felt the conditions were too tight, and that we would be able to act more quickly if we did it independently,â she told MPs this month.
She was proved right when there was a backlash within the EU from countries outside the negotiating group who were concerned that they might be left out or shortchanged. Ursula von der Leyen was pressurised to put the European Commission in charge of the blocâs negotiations. It was a decision that delayed the signing of a deal with Astrazeneca until August.
Britain had finalised a deal with Astrazeneca three months earlier and by July had agreements with Pfizer, Valneva and GSK. In August heads of terms were signed with Janssen and Novavax. The talks were conducted urgently and Britain offered huge concessions on legal protections, but not statutory immunity, for the companies should anything go wrong with the vaccines.
Ms Bingham told MPs: âWe were quick and nimble. We were clearly not the largest buyer. The US and the European Union are much more substantial buyers than the UK, yet we were both the first to secure the contract [with Pfizer] and the first to deploy.â
While the EU negotiators had to get sign-off from 27 governments, the UK task force was dealing with a small committee of four ministers: Matt Hancock, Alok Sharma, Lord Agnew of Oulton and Steve Barclay, who could authorise contracts.
Signing deals early also gave the NHS time to prepare, including acquiring cold storage facilities for the Pfizer vaccine, and allowed industry to begin scaling up production. Astrazeneca has said that Britainâs early actions gave it time to iron out âteething troublesâ in the manufacturing and supply chains.
Britainâs vaccine team, operating largely outside the constraints of Whitehall, was also displaying a bold streak. It took bets on several vaccine options and ended up with an order book for 367 million doses. The strategy was to ensure there was sufficient supply and to be able to redistribute any surplus to other countries.
By contrast the EU was cautious. The need for 27 countries to agree meant contracts took time. The US company Moderna noted in November that the slow process would inevitably impair the pace of vaccine delivery to the EU.
The EU also appears to have ordered too few of the most readily available vaccines and relied too heavily on deals yet to bear fruit. The commission placed heavy reliance on a deal with the French giant Sanofi, which has not paid off. Rather than producing its own vaccine Sanofi is now switching to bottling Pfizerâs in an effort to combat the temporary supply shortage created by Pfizer âupscalingâ its plant in Belgium.
Faced with supply problems and public anger, the EU has lashed out and, in effect, demanded that Pfizer and Astrazeneca breach the terms of contracts agreed with Britain.
The political row has not brought any pleasure to those involved in the UK vaccine initiative. Far from being a nationalist project, its goals from the start included building up vaccine research and manufacturing and supporting the WHO Covax project âto get vaccines shared equitablyâ globally
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Thatâs absolute nonsense in fairness.
Iâll say one thing, Germany are a seriously fucking sound and patient bunch of lads. If they hadnât thrown their lot in with the rest of us theyâd have been far far ahead of everyone in procuring vaccines for themselves, with France a distant runner up and everyone else fighting for scraps.
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I wonder was Ursula Von Der Lying. That looks somewhere between open to interpretation and vague and nowhere near cast iron.
Weâll be getting buses up to Enniskillen and Newry to get a vaccine
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The problem is that it presupposed that AZ would look for authorisation as soon as they could.
They didnât, so it could play out like this.
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Just give it to us. Now.
I want one produced by a company who want to make profit and are answerable to shareholders.
Not a half arsed one developed by a few brit scientists who are âdoing their bestâ.
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The EU will approve it in May
Would you like a second nose?
It would seem that AZ acted in fairly bad faith throughout this.
The fact that their contract with the UK was already signed should have given them full understanding on the limitations on the contract they could agree with the EU. If they had agreed prioritisation or anything similar then they shouldnât have committed what they did or at the very least have the contract reflect that.
Fair play to the UK, they got their contract early. That being said what isnât spelled out is the financial risk and additional cost they took on by placing big bets on all the major players as early as possible.
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Open it up ta fuck
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This seems fairly clearcut in terms of demolishing AZâs âyouâre in a queueâ argument or rationale for diverting doses to the UK ahead of the EU.
Either the UK contract had some sort of clause that prioritised (in which case AZ have acted in massive bad faith) or there is no such clause and AZ after signing the EU contract took actions contrary to what they had agreed with the EU.
Lads may as well be discussing smallpox.
Covid is over.
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The contract thing is a nonsense. They clearly have had manufacturing issues at both plants, but delayed the EU application in order to ship as many European manufactured vaccines as possible so they could have their mass rollout.
In fairness, the EU should have had more conditions in the contract.
Fritz needs to forget about this AZ nonsense and get the J&J one approved. One bullet bang bang.
We can approve it for emergency use without the EUs approval btw. Steal a march on the cunts