Thanks Brexit. UK leads vaccine rollout in Europe

As expected.

It has nothing to do with Brexit or the EU.

The worst thing that happened with the EU's incompetence over vaccine procurement was for politicians - Macron in particular - to criticise the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine.

France already has appalling rates for vaccine take up, and now German take up is decreasing.

But if Europe don't want the vaccines just give them back to AZ and they can be distributed in the developing world.

Congrats UK. I doubt anybody is honestly surprised even after five years of the media warning of apocalypse any day now.

The UK should’ve taken over Europe after the war. If you want to unify Europe that badly, why not unify it under the British crown?

69% of British people want surplus vaccines to be given to other counties. Only 46% of Americans do.

Disappointing that Israel isn't on there - it would be good to see if there's a link between altruism and a successful roll out.

Are you really going to roll out this exact same thread again, Adolf @OP? Like it wasn't fatuous enough the first time?

We get it, you're desperate for a Brexit win; anything will do. Well, keep looking, because after months of having the highest COVID rate in Europe, the UK still hasn't managed to get its own Oxford-AstreZeneca vaccine out to enough of its own people, and now they're delaying the second doses.

But I guess it distracts from the chaos at the ports.

The developing world doesn't want the AstraZeneca vaccine, r3.

South Africa stopped all vaccinations with the stuff weeks ago because it appears to be nearly useless against the newer COVID variants. They're trying to offload their doses to other countries, and I think they still don't have any takers.

[quote]The developing world doesn't want the AstraZeneca vaccine, [R3].

So why have the WHO sent 600,000 doses to Ghana?

Preliminary evidence from Scotland suggests a massive reduction in hospitalisation for COVID after vaccination, c. 90%, with the AZ result actually a bit better than Pfizer, though clearly more investigation is needed.

It's not "the newer variants", R8, it's only the South African one. Which obviously is why South Africa can't use it.

There's no reason for me, as an american left-leaning gay, to have an opinion one way or the other on Brexit ( since I don't live in the uk, schengen zone, nor have family or business there, etc).

It seems like the narrative I'm supposed to adopt is "Brexit bad; EU good" but I don't know why. Maybe the Uk is better off outside of the EU, maybe it's not, but imo too many on the american left think that because BoJo is 'conservative' and liked Trump and the UK is limiting immigration and w/e else, that the "morally correct" decision is Remain, but that's not necessarily the case.

The UK doesn't "lead" the vaccine rollout in Europe. Way more people in the EU per capita are fully vaccinated with two doses of mRNA vaccines than in the UK. The UK only seems to be "ahead" because our government made the moronic decision to delay the second Pfizer dose to 3 months, when it should not really be given more than 3 weeks later (very max. 6 weeks). So, instead of reserving second doses they gave almost of all of them out as first doses. By the time people get the second dose, the effect of the vaccine will have waned. Also, the AstraZeneca vaccine is almost a state-developed vaccine, like the Chinese Sinovac.

The EU is overwhelmingly using BioNTech Pfizer and is also using Moderna (unlike the UK currently) while the UK is hugely reliant on the crappy AstraZeneca, which we've given to lots of older people despite the fact that there is no data for how effective it is in that age group. Plenty of countries have restricted its use in older populations and some countries have either rejected the AstraZeneca altogether (South Africa, because the AZ is ineffective against the variant there) and Switzerland, while the US has ordered a new trial and Canada keeps stalling on authorisation.

The UK's attempts to claim it "leads" in Europe and hence Brexit was right (although it could have acted individually even as an EU member) don't impress anyone in the EU, especially the smaller, poorer countries. If every European country had been buying its vaccines separately, prices would have shot up, there would have been a crazy scramble and massive shortage, the pharma companies would not have had the huge support they're getting from the EU to set up supply chains. Trying to set vaccinations up as a kind of competition in which only the aggressive, macho selfish ones who put themselves first "win" helps no one. But that's the Brexit mentality in a nutshell - although Brexiters don't get that Britain isn't number one anymore and hasn't been for a long, long time.

No it doesn't r10, there is little evidence that after 4 weeks the AZ gives 90% effectiveness - that even goes against everything Oxford and AstraZeneca themselves have said, which is that after 12 weeks the vaccine gives 90% effectiveness. Moreover, the results for Pfizer underline how the UK was completely wrong to delay the second dose - full effect (as Israel has shown with a great deal of high-quality data, not the vague small amount of "person years" given by Public Health Scotland) can only be achieved once both doses have been given. The UK is undermining the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine by delaying the second dose.

That Public Health Scotland preprint with shaky data was only put out to bolster Bozo's scheduled great pronouncement of the massive success of the vaccination campaign on Monday and how everything could start opening up in time for Easter. But the reality is that vaccinations are having only a modest effect. And that's why Bozo couldn't make any triumphant pronouncements and we instead have this roadmap which will take us until June for most restrictions to be lifted.

I have R13 on block for some reason and reading his post I can understand why. Just pure lies.

The decision to focus on giving as many vulnerable people the first dose and delaying the second dose as a result has been vindicated by all the studies.

Most aspects of Brexit have been a disaster, but so has the European Union's vaccine procurement exercise. They were slow, complacent and when they started to receive criticism for it they lashed out at AstraZeneca.

The one thing that trolls like R13 never explain is if the AstraZeneca is such an unreliable vaccine, why did the European Union start an unholy row with the UK when they found out they weren't going to get as much of the vaccine as they wanted?

Because they have no other choice, r9. Oxford/AstraZeneca managed to fool many people with their hype. Plenty of orders were made for that disappointing vaccine and now people are stuck with it. If Ghana and the African Union could swap the AZ for J&J, they would do so in a heartbeat. The Russian and Chinese vaccines are also popular among poorer countries.

The Scottish evidence is specifically about hospitalisation levels after vaccination, R14. You have your anti AZ hobbyhorse you bang on about in multiple threads, without reading the post properly. By the way, when the French health minister was vaccinated on camera to encourage people, it was with AZ.

R11, the problem is not so much the so-called South African variant but the E484K mutation on the variant, which has also been found on some of the variants that appeared first in the UK.

Lol r15. I'm so glad you have me on block. But, I didn't say a single lie.

"The decision to focus on giving as many vulnerable people the first dose and delaying the second dose as a result has been vindicated by all the studies." - This is complete bullshit. There are no studies that vindicate this. If there are quote them and link to them. No other country in the world is following the UK's Pfizer strategy and many countries are restricting use of the AZ in older populations (and not just in the EU).

The EU's vaccine procurement is fine, it's much better than the UK's. The EU has ordered over a billion doses of mRNA vaccines - more than enough for its entire population - whereas we have only 57 million doses and most of those were ordered late, as the UK government realised that it really needed more mRNA vaccines. The EU will also be getting J&J in the next couple of months and CureVac by the summer. They even have AstraZeneca - and in the EU people know that if they choose to reject the AZ there are still other vaccines available for them.

Other than some Pfizer, which has been completely misused in the UK to the point that its effect is starting to wane, we in the UK are stuck with the second-rate AstraZeneca for several months and a tiny trickle of Moderna that might start in April, when we authorised it in January (after the EU). We won't be getting any J&J for a while, didn't order any CureVac (the late order of some booster vaccines to be used after the main vaccination programme is proof that the government realises it dropped the ball on that vaccine), and Novavax, the main production centres of which are in the EU, won't be ready until the second half of the year, too late for our vaccination programme.

Seriously, if the EU is bad then where does that put all the other countries in the world? The EU is well ahead of most of the world, and most of the developed world. AstraZeneca behaved appallingly to one of its biggest customers and their vaccine is not highly regarded in many countries outside of the EU as well. The US has not even authorised it yet and has ordered a new trial - which seems to be constantly delayed, for some reason.

R16, why don't you actually quote the "evidence" from the Public Health Scotland preprint about the supposed wonders of the AZ vaccine, not the euphoric British media headlines?

The French health minister is 40 and very fit and healthy. France is restricting the use of AZ in over-65s. The AZ vaccine is ok, but that's it. It can be used for younger people who are low risk. Giving it to older people, frontline workers, health workers, people with higher exposure, is a risk and should be avoided.

In any case, AstraZeneca seems to be completely incapable of setting up a fully functioning manufacturing and supply chain in the EU, despite the fact that the EU has some of the world's best vaccine-production capabilities and even the first few million AZ doses used in the UK came from the EU (and, some suspect, more doses that were intended for the EU were diverted to the UK). So, even if the EU wanted to use more AZ they couldn't. Lucky for them they have plenty of BioNTech Pfizer, Moderna and soon J&J.

Nowhere do you quote or link anything in your various rants, R20, so i don/t know where you get off demanding other posters do.