covid-19

[Hazir]

After country after country in Europe has been gripped by temporary insanity (a few like Portugal, Belgium and Poland being sensible exceptions), with the EMA remaining sensible throughout, I see that von der Leyen has been unhappy at the national leaders being the ones to screw around so is now like "hold my stein".

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The UK and other countries aren't blocking exports of vaccines to Europe and Europe aren't sending vaccines to the UK etc. Companies within the UK and Europe are meeting their contractual obligations and countries like the UK are front of the queue because we paid more and invested earlier to get the vaccines. As we discussed months ago, though some here thought that spending more and signing contracts earlier wouldn't have an impact on rollout.

Now she's threatening to block exports, expropriate IP and worse all because her government fucked up negotiating contracts. The companies producing the vaccines will send them when they're produced and due in the list of contracts they've signed, that's how markets operate.

So much for Europe being a "rules based" organisation.

Actually none of the proposed actions are illegal. They are unusual, but well within the bounds of the rules. The EU has exported 35m doses, at a time where you have to ask if we can actually afford to do that.

Whatever the UK feels about that is irrelevant. Given that the US isn't really short on vaccins at all I doubt any export ban will register in the US.

[RandBlade]

Halting the sales of legally signed contracts is not playing by the rules.

Of course the Pfizer vaccine also uses a lot of raw ingredients made in the UK, which if halted retaliatorily would see European vaccines grind to a halt, which was no doubt mentioned back in January which is why this madness was stopped. Absolute insanity all because the Commission stalled on signing contracts and haggled over price and is now trying to stir up shit to distract from their failings - the European Parliament should do the right thing and oust this incompetent Commission.

Considering the EU are waiting for vaccines from the UK, what the UK thinks about the matter is relevant. Amusingly when Covid struck the UK did not have a vaccine manufacturing industry but having invested in it during Covid the UK is now going to be one of the largest vaccine exporters. The UK have two AZ manufactories plus is the location for manufacturing Novovax and more - if the EU blocks vaccines to the UK not only could we block ingredients going to Europe to make Pfizer, we could halt vaccines going to the EU from the UK before long - put the EU behind Covax on the list. Is that a fight you really want?

The amusing thing is that the UK and America wisely responded to the pharma industry by essentially saying "we need vaccines, how big of a cheque do you need to get them made and supplied to us" while the EU instead spent months haggling like they were in a bazaar ending up at the back of the queue in order to save money. But having wasted months haggling they're now busy picking as many fights they can with the one pharma company giving the doses at cost price, about £3 per dose rather than about £25 per dose.

[RandBlade]

Though the debate seems to be over now as it's been comprehensively demonstrated to be the right move, interesting figures today from PHE on the single dose effectiveness, updated with new data.

Real world days now shows a single dose alone reduces hospitalisations by 80% and risk of death by 85%. That is absolutely stunning and better than even hoped for originally. So giving a single dose to twice as many people absolutely and unequivocally dose save lives.

And yes it has been 12 weeks now. Case closed now surely whether you thought it right at the start or not? Wiggin?

[Hazir]

Were you saying something?

[RandBlade]

You struggling with long sentences? Want me to dumb it down for you?

Vaccine tested.
Vaccine safe.
EMA says that.
Single dose works.
Vaccine saves lives.
Use vaccine.
Use many single doses.
Save many lives.
Stop clowning around.

[Hazir]

You struggling with long sentences? Want me to dumb it down for you?

Vaccine tested.
Vaccine safe.
EMA says that.
Single dose works.
Vaccine saves lives.
Use vaccine.
Use many single doses.
Save many lives.
Stop clowning around.

I see you're learning.

[Aimless]

Learned more about one of the cases of thrombocytopenia and bleeding. Large intracerebral hemorrhage, followed by death shortly thereafter. No compelling alternative explanation. No autopsy yet, so no idea if there were other indications of broader coagulation problems, ie. with bleeding or clotting elsewhere. Last night, I admitted a healthy patient with persistent new-onset headache, vertigo and nystagmus since the day after vaccination.

[Hazir]

Learned more about one of the cases of thrombocytopenia and bleeding. Large intracerebral hemorrhage, followed by death shortly thereafter. No compelling alternative explanation. No autopsy yet, so no idea if there were other indications of broader coagulation problems, ie. with bleeding or clotting elsewhere. Last night, I admitted a healthy patient with persistent new-onset headache, vertigo and nystagmus since the day after vaccination.

I read a part of the German report on this and I must say that I am more worried now than I was. Especially the age group in which it occurs is worrying.

Did the patient have these symptoms after getting the AZ vaccine?

[Ominous Gamer]

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/...aken-er-funnet

[Aimless]

I read a part of the German report on this and I must say that I am more worried now than I was. Especially the age group in which it occurs is worrying.

Did the patient have these symptoms after getting the AZ vaccine?

Yes—shortly after, for the patient who eventually died; the day after, for the patient I admitted yesterday (now coming up on their third week).

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/...aken-er-funnet

Balanced and very accessible overview from Gretchen Vogel and Kai Kupferschmidt:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021...eca-s-covid-19

The numbers are a little out of date. This touches on your question a little, as well, Fuzzy.

[RandBlade]

https://www.berlingske.dk/nyheder/da...se-blodpropper

Interesting theory, run through Google Translate.

[RandBlade]

EMA "Safe & effective vaccine, not associated with blood clots ... benefits far greater than its risks"

No shit Sherlock, while thousands a day are dying from Covid19 and a third wave seems to be underway. Wonder how long the clowns who suspended vaccinations despite the EMA not advising that will continue to keep it suspended for?

What a tragedy that hundreds or thousands extra will die due to the time lost to this madness.

[Aimless]

As expected, EMA believes the risk of common types of thromboembolic events is not likely to be elevated by the AstraZeneca vaccine, but they remain more guarded wrt the more unusual DIC-like conditions and CVST—while pointing out that, even if there is a causal relationship, the risk of these events occurring remains low. They are expecting to include an additional warning in the product info, and continue to look into those more alarming events. I think there will be considerable public pressure on govts to prioritize procurement of—and preferentially deploy—vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax and Janssen, moving forward.

[RandBlade]

As expected, EMA believes the risk of common types of thromboembolic events is not likely to be elevated by the AstraZeneca vaccine, but they remain more guarded wrt the more unusual DIC-like conditions and CVST—while pointing out that, even if there is a causal relationship, the risk of these events occurring remains low. They are expecting to include an additional warning in the product info, and continue to look into those more alarming events. I think there will be considerable public pressure on govts to prioritize procurement of—and preferentially deploy—vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax and Janssen, moving forward.

Absolutely there might be and shame on any clownish twats who are feeding antivaxx memes by feeding fear stories like this.

There's a reason organisations like the EMA, MHRA, FDA etc exist and the politicians and other clowns who have tried to second guess the EMA should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. They have blood on their hands.

I don't often give praise to EU organisations but the EMA deserves praise here for keeping their heads while those around them have been losing theirs. They have done their job well.

[Aimless]

As expected, EMA believes the risk of common types of thromboembolic events is not likely to be elevated by the AstraZeneca vaccine, but they remain more guarded wrt the more unusual DIC-like conditions and CVST—while pointing out that, even if there is a causal relationship, the risk of these events occurring remains low. They are expecting to include an additional warning in the product info, and continue to look into those more alarming events. I think there will be considerable public pressure on govts to prioritize procurement of—and preferentially deploy—vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax and Janssen, moving forward.

Adding to this: an interesting revelation is that they're actively investigating a possible signal of increased risk of ITP with all authorized vaccines. The press questions are excellent today. It's clear that the answers are primarily focused on regular thromboembolic events—presumably because that's what's received the most intense coverage in mass media—which is less interesting, scientifically, but of obv. policy interest.

[Aimless]

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[GGT]

Sorry if this has been debated already (I'm not gonna scroll thru 106 pages) but what's up with the growing "Vaccine Hesitancy" in the US?

It appears to have political elements (more Republicans are hesitant/mistrustful than Democrats) but even large numbers of our military are choosing NOT to get inoculated.

[Lewkowski]

Sorry if this has been debated already (I'm not gonna scroll thru 106 pages) but what's up with the growing "Vaccine Hesitancy" in the US?

It appears to have political elements (more Republicans are hesitant/mistrustful than Democrats) but even large numbers of our military are choosing NOT to get inoculated.

Biden and Harris raised concerns about vaccine safety during the political campaign trail. Blame them.

[Aimless]

Interesting that MAGA Republicans are taking their cues from Biden and Harris. Or, you know, horseshit.

[Aimless]

Highly unusual:

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news...zeneca-vaccine

Although, more or less in keeping with previous inexplicably messy work. Fortunately, the new trial is (probably) better than the previous attempts.

[RandBlade]

On the first anniversary of the original lockdown in the UK, excess deaths now officially over.

"The period of "excess deaths" which has characterised the second wave of COVID-19 has now come to an end, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

For the first time since September, the number of people dying of all causes in England and Wales has dropped beneath the five-year average.

According to the figures, some 10,987 people died in the week ending 12 March, which was 511 below the historical average for that week, the 10th week of the year."

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...gures-12254247

A couple of other landmarks reached, over 30 million vaccinations have been done with the majority of adults in the country having now been vaccinated.

[RandBlade]

Highly unusual:

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news...zeneca-vaccine

Although, more or less in keeping with previous inexplicably messy work. Fortunately, the new trial is (probably) better than the previous attempts.

https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-ce...rial-data.html

Bizarre response from the NIAID considering the press release was titled "AZD1222 US Phase III trial met primary efficacy endpoint in preventing COVID-19 at interim analysis" Second sentence was "This interim safety and efficacy analysis was based on 32,449 participants accruing 141 symptomatic cases of COVID-19".

https://www.astrazeneca.com/content/...-endpoint.html

The interim press release used interim data at the pre-determined interim point. Strange thing to get worked up about.

[Hazir]

These people at AZ seem to do their best to destroy trust in their vaccine. Still seems the EC is going to press ahead with export controls. The Dutch and Belgian governments would prefer another solution but will not block a decision to stop exports.

[Aimless]

These people at AZ seem to do their best to destroy trust in their vaccine. Still seems the EC is going to press ahead with export controls. The Dutch and Belgian governments would prefer another solution but will not block a decision to stop exports.

Will enable parity between EU & int'l positions wrt vaccine nationalism. I thought it would be unlikely to make a practical difference, but this story might change matters:

https://www.europe1.fr/international...cation-4033560

The reporting on this story is very shaky atm, so we really need to wait on more detailed info re. where the substance finished at Anagni has been produced. But the inspection itself appears to have been prompted by a perception of evasiveness on the company's part, and that's just really bad in a business relationship. From a contract law perspective, there is no "first come, first serve" defense here—the company clearly has conflicting contractual obligations, but they must all be honored. Wonder if this increases likelihood of the matter going to trial in Belgium.

[Hazir]

Will enable parity between EU & int'l positions wrt vaccine nationalism. I thought it would be unlikely to make a practical difference, but this story might change matters:

https://www.europe1.fr/international...cation-4033560

The reporting on this story is very shaky atm, so we really need to wait on more detailed info re. where the substance finished at Anagni has been produced. But the inspection itself appears to have been prompted by a perception of evasiveness on the company's part, and that's just really bad in a business relationship. From a contract law perspective, there is no "first come, first serve" defense here—the company clearly has conflicting contractual obligations, but they must all be honored. Wonder if this increases likelihood of the matter going to trial in Belgium.

Well, that is interesting indeed. How come these vaccines were transported from the Netherlands to Italy in a situation where any export ban would most likely have been the charge of the Dutch government. It's not illegal I guess to use an Italian storage, but it sure is fishy that such a big number was moved out of sight of the Dutch government.

Again, AstraZeneca lost points on trust building. I wonder who's still willing to work with them once this pandemic is over.

[RandBlade]

Will enable parity between EU & int'l positions wrt vaccine nationalism. I thought it would be unlikely to make a practical difference, but this story might change matters:

https://www.europe1.fr/international...cation-4033560

The reporting on this story is very shaky atm, so we really need to wait on more detailed info re. where the substance finished at Anagni has been produced. But the inspection itself appears to have been prompted by a perception of evasiveness on the company's part, and that's just really bad in a business relationship. From a contract law perspective, there is no "first come, first serve" defense here—the company clearly has conflicting contractual obligations, but they must all be honored. Wonder if this increases likelihood of the matter going to trial in Belgium.

Parity? The EU will be the only country in the western developed world blocking legally signed contracts.

The UK hasn't blocked a single export.
The USA said in advance that they were not going to export, meaning other countries didn't sign their contracts with American plants because they were forewarned about the situation there.
The EU companies took the money in contracts from companies because the EU was not going to block exports, the UK signed up Halix first before the EU did.

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We can explain it. The EU signed their contracts later than other countries. The EU didn't invest like other countries did. The UK signed up three factories to produce for the UK first: the two in the UK plus Halix in the Netherlands. Astrazeneca's model is that countries can sign up as many plants as they want to produce the vaccine, its as close to open source as any vaccine is ever going to be and at cost. Hence plants all over the world like in India. But the EU only invested in starting up just ONE plant plus piggybacked on the back of the three that the UK had already done.

You have backed lies for months like that the EU had "caught up" with the UK and come out with your own lies like "Drug development costs don't scale linearly with the number of end users, and the same goes for procurement and production." There's one reason and one reason alone the EU has done terribly and that is they fucked up royally by failing to invest, but were happy to take money in contracts from other countries. If the production from other countries, legally signed, is now stolen then that will just show that the EU is not a law abiding territory safe to invest in.

[RandBlade]

From two months ago tomorrow.

There is no indication that your higher vaccination rates can be ascribed to any meaningful extent to your higher spending. You authorized your vaccines earlier, and started vaccinating before other countries, ramping up quickly. Your supply requirements are, of course, also far lower than the EU's. To the extent that your higher rates can be ascribed to spending, one might argue that your spending on the NHS may have contributed to that. But your vaccine-specific spending has been less relevant. Moving forward, your spending on the facility in Wales—for example—will be critical to sustaining your vaccination rates over time; the EU, fortunately, already has several facilities producing vaccines, so that additional expenditure was not required.

Still wanting to deny that the EU spending less in total, let alone 7x less per capita, on developing vaccine production capacity than the UK did last year had anything to do with vaccination rates? That spending an order of magnitude more, earlier, to build up vaccine production capacity has anything to do with actually having the capacity to get vaccine supplies?

Still wanting to defend the lie that the EU has caught up with the UK in vaccinations? Yes, only looking at second-doses is a lie not "alternative facts".

But don't worry, after refusing to spend money on procuring your own vaccines and taking money from other countries spent on producing vaccines, you always have the option of stealing other nation's vaccines that they have bought and paid for after your companies took the contracts, that won't make the EU a disreputable place to invest in for the future will it?

You can even go as far as holding up orders because you're thinking of stealing from the Third World to make up for the unforced errors. Easier to rip off Covax than to admit a mistake was made.

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Why bother helping vaccinate the third world when you can steal their doses you haven't paid for instead?

[RandBlade]

Well, that is interesting indeed. How come these vaccines were transported from the Netherlands to Italy in a situation where any export ban would most likely have been the charge of the Dutch government. It's not illegal I guess to use an Italian storage, but it sure is fishy that such a big number was moved out of sight of the Dutch government.

Again, AstraZeneca lost points on trust building. I wonder who's still willing to work with them once this pandemic is over.

Funny how you immediately assume something is dodgy. Nothing dodgy, it's a fill and finish site used for the third world Covax scheme.

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Do you want to rip off Covax by stealing their doses?

You can tell the EU haven't got a leg to stand on contractually because if they did they'd be going to court and getting injunctions or court rulings. They know they can't because the contracts don't say what they wish they did, so stealing from others is the alternative to admitting mistakes.

The bad thing is if in January, let alone October or May last year, when it was realised the EU had fucked up and underinvested they'd chosen to immediately invest more, then new production channels could have been coming online by now. That's how the rest of the world has done it, pay to invest not steal others doses.

[RandBlade]

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The EU's vaccine program this year.


No doubt will be ignored now by Aimless and Hazir who will mysteriously find no reason whatsoever to condemn this disreputable behaviour. Every day vaccine doses are impounded rather than injected into arms is lives lost.

[Aimless]

Well, that is interesting indeed. How come these vaccines were transported from the Netherlands to Italy in a situation where any export ban would most likely have been the charge of the Dutch government. It's not illegal I guess to use an Italian storage, but it sure is fishy that such a big number was moved out of sight of the Dutch government.

Again, AstraZeneca lost points on trust building. I wonder who's still willing to work with them once this pandemic is over.

Tbf AZN—like many big pharma companies—has a history of scandalous and borderline criminal behaviour, which never seems to get in the way of business; fines etc. are just viewed as cost of doing business. I think that, even if they're burned politically in the EU, they'll be all right in a global perspective—notwithstanding competition from J&J and others.

Think it's not surprising that a very large number of doses are stored at the site in Italy, as the Catalent facility there is responsible for much of the fill/finishing for both UK and EU supply chains. But yeah—it is strange if a large amount of substance was shipped there from the Halix facility without the Commission's knowledge, given that the company is required to declare such exports. It really all depends on how much has been shipped there from NL and BE resp. and how long the product has been there. Not at all unlikely that the journalists jumped the shark.