"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Now we just get the entertainment of the German Trump operating out of Brussels instead, killing tens of thousands of people due to greed and incompetence.Originally Posted by Aimless
Don't worry, our fantastically competent operation can be your white knight riding to your rescue. I'm not sure which element of that must stick in your throat more.
Given that your government deliberately took decisions—motivated by greed and incompetence—that likely caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths and subjected a comparable number of people to severe illness, I don't know whether "fantastically competent operation" is the right term. I was disappointed to see you defend the English Trump's murderous incompetence with such MAGA-ite zeal. I assure you, I take no pleasure in telling you "I told you so"—but I have consistently warned you about the likely consequences of your dangerously sloppy approach to testing and restrictions, at every step, since last year... and those consequences have, sadly, come to pass, in the way I warned you they would. And for what?! So you could get people to eat out at restaurants for a little while?! So you wouldn't have to take responsibility for not protecting students??! So you could avoid the political inconvenience of making difficult decisions??! You spent half a billion and thousands of lives in order to stroke Rishi Sunak's ego and protect your Prime Baby when you could've just given businesses the money they needed to weather the pandemic. It would've been a pittance in comparison to the cost in terms of lives and in terms of protracted societal disruption due to your incompetent management. So many lives that could have been saved—instead lost, due to base and utterly dysfunctional politics. Insanity. Utterly corrupt. If you had taken appropriate action several months ago, tens of thousands of people would be alive today to receive their vaccines and celebrate the end of the pandemic—instead of lying in the ground because of your government's decisions. smdh
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Whinge, whinge, whinge that's all we get from you.
There's been no greed or incompetence. Taking away people's civil liberties should always be an absolute last resort.
But if you're going to take away people's civil liberties then having made that decision get out of it properly ASAP. Do whatever is needed to be done.
Our government has done that, and done a fantastic world leading job with a vaccine program a year in a making. Stunningly impressive levels of competence, that I can see is making you spit with jealousy and it is a really ugly colour on you.
In a normal circumstance you would only promise what you could guarantee, yes. But these aren't normal circumstances, I'm willing to bet that they were under pressure to deliver as much as possible as quickly as possible, so they gave a maximal estimate on what their best case scenario was going to be.
I frankly can't evaluate how reasonable their estimates were (or how badly they mismanaged communication and timing) without a clear understanding of several things:
1. What they had already told/promised the countries in question
2. What went wrong with production
3. When they knew they wouldn't be able to meet their promised deliveries
It's entirely possible they did manage expectations reasonably well, and the production/yield problem only became apparent very recently, so they did the best they could. It's also possible that they overpromised and didn't do a good job with keeping their stakeholders in the loop, resulting in the current mess. It's also possible that EU politicians are posturing and knew full well of the risks to the timeline but just aren't willing to admit it. I frankly don't know, but I will definitely agree that it looks like AZN has done a bad job of managing expectations.
I do want to add that this kind of production and scale-up can be an extremely challenging process, and it is not something where you can just flip a switch and get everything working correctly. There are legions of people whose entire job is figuring out how to scale up processes to keep them in control and at high yield, and similarly there is an entire field involved in transferring technologies and processes from one facility to another. You can't just phone up your buddies at another production plant or company and ask them to whip you up some of X; the process is generally bespoke and very complex. Even with the vast experience and resources available at a place like AZN there are often expertise bottlenecks and technical hurdles that are not immediately apparent until you reach them. I could easily believe that no amount of additional money would have made more vaccine available sooner. Sometimes things just take time.
I am currently working on a complex chemical process that we're optimizing for producing parts for a human trial. We have dozens of individual questions to track down and answer. Every time we make change to a process - changing the scale, venue, a raw material supplier, anything - we have a huge amount of validation work needed to optimize the process for the changed inputs or variables. There are fundamental limits to the timeline that can't be beaten by throwing more resources at a problem, and as you work to sort out these issues your ongoing production lines are being cannibalized for process development work. It's really, really hard to do when you are working under the gun.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
I was of course parodying the ridiculous performance you treated us to just a few pages agothe reality is that your govt. accelerated transmission, with deadly results, through your "eat out to help out" scheme, and then with your testing policies, and then with your encouragement to hold in-person education at unis, and then with your "tier system", and then with your premature lifting of lockdown restrictions. Restricting civil liberties should be a "last resort" in the sense that other options are preferable if they're nearly equivalent, and the less intrusive restrictions are, the better; to the extent restrictions must be imposed, they must be imposed in a timely manner—if for no other reason than that that reduces the duration of the restrictions. You defended your Trumpian leader's deadly decisions and now you're trying to divert attention away from that, whining about how unfair the media is, alleging conspiracies—much like Trump
Last edited by Aimless; 01-31-2021 at 08:37 AM.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
This is not a relevant argument wrt the issue of their failure to notify. Coming even close to hitting their target would've required them to have optimized and then scaled up production weeks ago, in order to build up a large stock and be ready to start shipping large volumes of finished product now. What you're bringing up is an argument for notifying the customer sooner, not later; if most of the scaling up occurs at a late stage of a collection of non-linear, complex and risky processes, if you're not very close to that late stage, there's a high risk of something happening that will fuck up your plan very much.
See, when you say things like this, it indicates that you don't actually understand that these processes are indeed complex and non-linear. They've had a variety of problems at a number of locations; there's no indication that the problems here are the same as problems at other sites, nor any indication of what the time-frame for resolving them is likely to be. Because you're still stuck on trying to connect this to the EU's delay in signing the contract, you say "3 month delay for the UK too", as if signing the contract three months earlier would've given the EU 80 million doses over the course of Q1—but, due to the nature of these problems, it may just as well be a much shorter or much longer delay. Longer lead time is often a good way to mitigate this sort of risk, as is more conservative planning, and—occasionally—greater redundancy. For this reason, AZN should have notified the EU weeks ago about what appears to be a substantial production problem at a facility that produces the drug substance. This problem must have been on their radar weeks ago, because that is when they had to (ie. needed to) have begun to produce the substance at a large scale, fill/finish much larger quantities to build up stock, test and be ready to deliver immediately upon arrival.they've found a problem - a problem that hit the UK and led to a 3 month delay for the UK too - and have followed proper notification procedures a couple of months before the product was due.
The same thing happened here too
Incidentally, up until a few days ago, vaccine destined for the UK was still being finished and shipped from one of AZN's sites in Germany, similar to the millions of doses promised at the end of last year, which were to be diverted from NL and Germany. This—along with the portions of the contract that explicitly include UK production capacity for the purposes of "best reasonable efforts" to deliver the initial EU doses—cast into doubt the company's already dubious claims about the supply-chains being separate, and the claims re. the UK production capacity being reserved for UK doses paints AZN's assurances about there being no such impediments to fulfilling their EU order in a very bad light.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
HUZZAHS!
They have notified - months early. Your refusal to acknowledge that is just embarrassing. They have got stock ready to ship now. They have got stock ready for fill and finish and distribution in February, what they won't have is enough stock ready for March. Which you're right they'd realise a little earlier - around about January. Which they have done.
Yes longer lead time is a good way to mitigate this sort of risk, but the EU refused the longer lead time. Their choice. They then insisted they wanted it quick and the company doing this generously offered to try their best to fix the EU's screw up and get it done if they can. They didn't guarantee they would.You should have given them longer.See, when you say things like this, it indicates that you don't actually understand that these processes are indeed complex and non-linear. They've had a variety of problems at a number of locations; there's no indication that the problems here are the same as problems at other sites, nor any indication of what the time-frame for resolving them is likely to be. Because you're still stuck on trying to connect this to the EU's delay in signing the contract, you say "3 month delay for the UK too", as if signing the contract three months earlier would've given the EU 80 million doses over the course of Q1—but, due to the nature of these problems, it may just as well be a much shorter or much longer delay. Longer lead time is often a good way to mitigate this sort of risk, as is more conservative planning, and—occasionally—greater redundancy. For this reason, AZN should have notified the EU weeks ago about what appears to be a substantial production problem at a facility that produces the drug substance. This problem must have been on their radar weeks ago, because that is when they had to (ie. needed to) have begun to produce the substance at a large scale, fill/finish much larger quantities to build up stock, test and be ready to deliver immediately upon arrival.
They did notify the EU "weeks ago" from when it was due. Due in March, notified in January. That is weeks. That is months.
Nah bollocks. The UK ordered first so the first production plans were for the UK and the later production plans were for the EU.Incidentally, up until a few days ago, vaccine destined for the UK was still being finished and shipped from one of AZN's sites in Germany, similar to the millions of doses promised at the end of last year, which were to be diverted from NL and Germany. This—along with the portions of the contract that explicitly include UK production capacity for the purposes of "best reasonable efforts" to deliver the initial EU doses—cast into doubt the company's already dubious claims about the supply-chains being separate, and the claims re. the UK production capacity being reserved for UK doses paints AZN's assurances about there being no such impediments to fulfilling their EU order in a very bad light.
First come, first served. Don't be so fucking cheap and tardy next time.
If the Tories had spent 13% of what the Americans and Europeans had spent you would blame the Tories, not a business operating not-for-profit.
Eat Out To Help Out was a fantastic scheme that was a tremendous success. The economy matters as much as anything else. Your one-tracked obsession isn't a way to work in the real world, governments have complicated priorities. I hope they repeat EOTHO in the Spring. But what kind of twisted perversion rots your soul that you think trying to help save people's livelihoods is "greed"?I was of course parodying the ridiculous performance you treated us to just a few pages ago
The biggest mistake, which I've acknowledged and repeated for a long time now, is not putting in place mandatory hotel quarantines after the original lockdown and through to now. That was a mistake. Mistakes happen. No European country has done that though - and until the Kent mutation occured the UK was having a better second wave than almost all of Europe. However as someone (Tim?) kept saying to Lewk about 50 pages ago "its not a league sport".
What conspiracies have I alleged. You're the one alleging conspiracies. Not for profit businesses apparently conspiring to not deliver vaccines due a few months after they notify, only ordered a few months earlier.
That is, of course, nonsense. They expect to be able to have enough to cover around 40% of the order between now and the end of March. The only way your interpretation makes sense is if they have tens of millions of finished doses stocked and ready to ship. The only way they can have tens of millions of doses worth of finished product now, despite having a production problem in their supply chain resulting in such a massive shortfall, is if they have had the production problem for a very long time, without any signs of being resolved pronto. The issue is not that they have failed to notify the EU that they don't have enough doses for March—it is that they failed to notify the EU that they wouldn't have anywhere near enough doses for February and March due to a production problem they must have known about weeks ago and had not been able to resolve in time to meet their target for the first deliveries.They have notified - months early. Your refusal to acknowledge that is just embarrassing. They have got stock ready to ship now. They have got stock ready for fill and finish and distribution in February, what they won't have is enough stock ready for March. Which you're right they'd realise a little earlier - around about January. Which they have done.
[...]
They did notify the EU "weeks ago" from when it was due. Due in March, notified in January. That is weeks. That is months.
None of this is a defense given that the company accepted the contract and then failed to notify the Commission in a timely manner that they wouldn't be able to deliver. I listed three possible ways to mitigate this type of problem. AZN's failures involved screwing up all three. Once again—Pfizer has also been beset by delays, with nowhere near as acrimonous a dispute. The company engaged constructively with the Commission, and was able to quickly secure additional capacity from Sanofi.Yes longer lead time is a good way to mitigate this sort of risk, but the EU refused the longer lead time. Their choice. They then insisted they wanted it quick and the company doing this generously offered to try their best to fix the EU's screw up and get it done if they can. They didn't guarantee they would.You should have given them longer.
This is categorically untrue. At the time, FT reported that the company had shipped those doses from their continental facilities because they had booked capacity there that they did not want to "waste". The only way that makes sense is if the UK got doses that were regarded as being the result of that excess capacity that would otherwise have gone unused. The only way they have excess capacity in December—when they're supposed to be building stock for the initial EU doses—at their continental facilities is if they're close to fulfilling the EU order—which they were not—or if they're behind on the EU order. That is not to say the EU had a right to those doses; after all, it's possible—albeit unlikely—that they were only finishing the product using drug substance that had been shipped to the Dutch and German sites from the UK facilities. But that scenario means they were behind schedule wrt getting yields up to the necessary volumes for the purposes of fulfilling the EU order.Nah bollocks. The UK ordered first so the first production plans were for the UK and the later production plans were for the EU.
Not at all. First of all, you're referring to spending per capita. Secondly, you're referring specifically to the EU's spending—not taking into consideration member states' individual expenditures. Thirdly, you're disregarding the spending on the "coronavirus global response"; if Tories had spent £26 per capita on such a globally beneficial initiative, that would've been very cool and certainly worthy of praise. I think you'll find that I generally do not criticize specific sums when it comes to budget decisions; I criticize poorly-made decisions and priorities that I believe to be questionable. For example, unlike Gogo (who may or may not have been serious), I have literally no problem at all with the UK govt. decisively going after vaccines, and securing domestic vaccine production capacity; I believe those decisions were well-made, and that those priorities were good. You have difficulties understanding this because you view these discussions through a simplistic partisan lens, as if you're fighting about whose "team" is "best".If the Tories had spent 13% of what the Americans and Europeans had spent you would blame the Tories, not a business operating not-for-profit.
The scheme was almost certainly directly responsible for accelerating community transmission, and it was rightly criticized by your govt's own scientific advisors, as were the decisions to delay restrictions—and to implement them in a haphazard manner—before lifting them carelessly and prematurely. Govts do have complicated priorities, but there is no good way to justify prioritizing an unnecessary scheme incentivizing people to hang around in high risk settings. You want to save people's livelihoods? Give them enough money instead of incentivizing them and their customers to spread covid on the premises. You think "the economy matters as much as anything else"? Then don't implement policies that facilitate the transmission of a deadly virus, ultimately leading to long and extremely costly lockdowns—not to mention death and substantial morbidity. The only person with a one-track mind here is you—for focusing on a small policy that may have been to your personal benefit but had a disproportionately negative impact when you look at the full picture. You're not even one-track wrt the economy—just the part of the economy that concerns getting people to have boozy covid get-togethers at pubs.
What on earth makes you think that was the biggest mistake?The biggest mistake, which I've acknowledged and repeated for a long time now, is not putting in place mandatory hotel quarantines after the original lockdown and through to now. That was a mistake. Mistakes happen. No European country has done that though - and until the Kent mutation occured the UK was having a better second wave than almost all of Europe. However as someone (Tim?) kept saying to Lewk about 50 pages ago "its not a league sport".
What conspiracies have I alleged.This comically Francophobic and EU-phobic conspiracy theory was—of course—as false as it was stupid, as I explained in some detail at the time.
I'm sorry, where have I alleged that AZN has conspired to "not deliver vaccines"? I have said that AZN failed to notify the EU in a timely manner, and that they have misrepresented their contract, which they have also failed to uphold. That is not the same as "conspired to not deliver vaccines". Furthermore, AZN is not a not-for-profit business; the company has made a limited commitment to not profit from the vaccine during the pandemic itself, but that does not mean that it's taking a loss. On the contrary, the vaccine orders have already been hugely beneficial for the company—through the massive boosts to their development budget—and may be more valuable once the company declares the pandemic to be over for the purposes of their contract with Oxford, even if their competitors prove to be more viable. "Not for profit businesses" lmaoYou're the one alleging conspiracies. Not for profit businesses apparently conspiring to not deliver vaccines due a few months after they notify, only ordered a few months earlier.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
The biggest mistake, besides locking down too late, twice, was not being properly prepared in the first place.
A government has a responsibility to protect its people. The UK government, along with many others, failed miserably.
If anything good can come of this experience, it should be ploughing serious investment and planning into preventing this shit show again.
Buying a lot of vaccine nice early does not give Johnson a get out of jail free card. He doesn't deserve a single vote from anyone in the next election.
Yes mistakes happen. Of course they do. What really matters though is that our public servants are brave and moral enough to admit them, rectify them and put measures in place to prevent them happening again.
Over 600,000 people vaccinated yesterday in the UK.
Fantastic! That's well over 1% of the adult population in a day.
Twitter Link
So VDL now claiming as a victory what AZN offered to the EU a week ago. Glad she's seen sense and is picking her toys back up, but what an avoidable mess.
The contract says what the Commission claimed it did, and it's pretty clear "Hugo" is full of shit here, in several respects—including the claim about not saying anything in public, given the CEO's deceptive statements in the interview. What the statement indicates is that AZN was able placate the Commission by apologizing profusely for failure to uphold the terms of the contract. The final sentence describes what would have happened sooner if the company had notified the Commission when it was supposed to. This commentator, like several other bellicose British bellends, assumed this would end up in court before the rollout of the EU doses—if the EU had a case. The reality is that the EU was not interested in waiting for a case that would tie up everyone's resources; the objective was to bring AZN to heel and address the practical problems that had arisen as a result of the company's negligence.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Are you Rudy Guiliani in disguise?
No it does not, the contract says what AZN says it did - they would make their best efforts. Actually best reasonable efforts which is a lower legal threshold. You've turned into a Trumpist this week, as the Trumpites in the Commission lash out at anyone and everyone they can. Listening to you whinge with your conspiracy rants is like talking to the delusional Trumpites blaming Dominion. Its pathetic.
Spent 1/7th the amount to develop vaccine capacity and development? Wasted three months haggling on contracts rather than signing them. Nah, none of that caused any issues according to AimlessTrump.
Meanwhile after the European nations have abandoned any pretence of offering what they should to support the third world, now Martin Selmayr tries to move on from Europe's mess of its own making by boasting that the EU has done more doses than Africa.
Twitter Link
What is pathetic is that you keep not reading things. The contract includes production capacity at two UK sites in "best reasonable efforts" for the purposes of delivering the initial EU order. AZN assured the commission it had no other commitments that would get in the way of delivering that order, but has now indicated that that was not quite true. The contract stipulates that AZN has to notify the Commission in a timely manner so that they can together find a solution, eg. by securing additional production capacity. That is what AZN will now be doing. Worth noting that some of the additional doses are probably going to have to be diverted from some other order. British commentators were in a huff because they believed their own doses were at risk, and so they focused on the least important aspect of the dispute.
Given your zealous defense of the English Trump's corruption, lies, deadly incompetence and open disregard for international law—as well as your well-established disregard for the truth—this might not be the best tack for you RB. If there is a scale of Trumpism, and if I am on it, it's very clear that you—and your straw-haired calf—are far higher up, practically sniffing the big man's butthole. I don't even go around trying to find excuses for racist policing or suspicion of bad hombres with Irish accentsSpent 1/7th the amount to develop vaccine capacity and development? Wasted three months haggling on contracts rather than signing them. Nah, none of that caused any issues according to AimlessTrump.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Ridiculous.
Just keep "releasing that Kraken".
Your zealous defense of the English Trump's corruption, lies, deadly incompetence and open disregard for international law—as well as your own well-established disregard for the truth? I don't think it's ridiculous so much as it is disgraceful. The contract said what the EU claimed it said—indeed, even "Hugo" conceded this. AZN was able to placate the Commission and they were able to find a path forward. I'm quite glad about this, because it lets us get back to the more interesting discussion about why you keep defending your PM's repeated decisions to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives out of political expedience. Why is that, RB? Is it because Dear Leader can do no wrong?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I should note, by the way, another example of you not being able to read:
I have not said any of this, so you're either illiterate (working theory) or lying (plausible alternative explanation). If you believe I have said what you think I've said, feel free to quote me, so that I can help you read.Spent 1/7th the amount to develop vaccine capacity and development? Wasted three months haggling on contracts rather than signing them. Nah, none of that caused any issues
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I acknowledge when things go wrong here. I've called for changes. When mistakes happen like not instituting mandatory hotel quarantine allowing the virus to be reimported I've called it out.
You though - you roll around in the sewer muck like the lowest of Trumpists denying any wrongdoing or mistakes whatsoever.
Faced with undeniable facts . . .
AimlessTrump: Nothing to see here.
Contracts signed three months apart.
AimlessTrump: Nothing to see here.
Sidney Powell VDL: No best efforts in the contract.
Contract: "Best reasonable efforts" in contract 15 times.
AimlessTrump: Nothing to see here.
There is a scandal here. The scandal is that during a pandemic, for which the only reasonable exit is a vaccine, the EU were late at ordering the vaccine, didn't pay enough for extra facilities to produce the vaccine (hence why its cheaper per dose at cost in the EU than in the UK - a concept you couldn't seem to get your head around), that people are getting angry at deaths and a lack of a vaccine and now they're flailing about to blame others - and you're happily throwing away any integrity you once had to muckrake and buy those lies.
The bigger scandal is the UK death toll tbh.
No, it really is not.
Deaths happen during a pandemic. People make choices and not everyone acts responsibly.
Not paying for treatment. Not paying for a vaccine. That's a bigger scandal. If people were dying not because of viral spread but because we weren't paying for the NHS, not paying for vaccines, that is worse.
Could avoid almost all pandemic deaths by welding people shut into their homes and taking away their civil liberties China style. Is that worth doing though? People dying because bad choices are made within the community or wherever is a shame - people dying because you can't be arsed to pay for medical treatment, to pay for vaccines, that is something else, something worse, a bigger scandal.
Nope. Our death toll, and the long list of UK government failures during this pandemic is a far, far bigger scandal.
No. Everyone has a death toll during a pandemic and ours is lower per capita than some European nations - and was lower than many of them until Kent Covid evolved (and our numbers were lower in the 2nd wave until it did). Deaths happen during a pandemic, that isn't avoidable unless you wish to strip everyone of all their civil liberties. People dying during a pandemic isn't a scandal, people die.
Austerity on vaccines - that is an entirely avoidable scandal.
The UK has done about the same per capita amount of vaccines in a 24 hour period as the Netherlands has done to date.
Twitter Link
And this my friends is why we left. This is why the EU is undemocratic and unaccountable. The whole world suddenly understands Brexit a lot better after this week.
No. I'm not suggesting other countries haven't failed either. That's equally scandalous.No. Everyone has a death toll during a pandemic and ours is lower per capita than some European nations - and was lower than many of them until Kent Covid evolved (and our numbers were lower in the 2nd wave until it did). Deaths happen during a pandemic, that isn't avoidable unless you wish to strip everyone of all their civil liberties. People dying during a pandemic isn't a scandal, people die.
Austerity on vaccines - that is an entirely avoidable scandal.
The UK has done about the same per capita amount of vaccines in a 24 hour period as the Netherlands has done to date.
You don't have to explain that people die in a pandemic. You're being a bit extreme and silly to suggest it's that or strip everyone of their civil liberties. As with all things in life, there's a balance. And generally speaking our government got that balance monumentally wrong.
I'm suggesting that the long and combined list of our government failures during this pandemic is a bigger scandal than the EU being slower than us at procuring, approving and rolling out a vaccine.
It's obviously a subjective thing and we could go round and round with posts and obviously not change each other's minds, because we're both pretty stubborn sometimes, so let's just agree to disagree, old chap.
And now suddenly AZN upped its offer with close to 1/4 to 40m doses. Their production capabilities must be made of rubber.
Congratulations America
No you didn't you witless fuck. You left because you were hoodwinked by a bunch of chancers who had just as little an idea of where this was going as you, when on the eve of casting your vote you still did not know what to vote.
I could just as easily claim you left to kill more than 100.000 people through stupid policies.
Congratulations America
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