[mytailorisrich]

> The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems.

And yet this should have been the plan from the very beginning.

Considering the vast numbers needed in Europe and the whole world, forcing all available production facilities to produce vaccines should have been part of the plan.

[readittwice]

Absolutely, however the EU's politicians are playing dumb and claim that they couldn't foresee that mass production could be a problem.

The EU ordered too late and simply not enough. Now they are trying to blame everyone else for their failure.

[akie]

Yes, that's true, but it also has to be said that producing these vaccines is not so simple. It's all new technology, no mRNA vaccine was ever approved before, and you can't just dial up production so easily. Unfortunately. You can't just convert any old pill-factory into a factory that produces these vaccines. Apparently there are supply chain issues as well - some of the things that are needed for the production of this vaccine are in not available in the numbers that are required.

But all that being said, I think we should move to war-time production here.

[readittwice]

I can absolutely imagine that scaling production is extremely hard.

However I don't have confidence that the same politicians that just claimed that they couldn't foresee problems with mass production did everything in their power to help here last summer. I mean the EU ordered only in November from Biontech and Moderna (and less doses than the companies offered). That doesn't really look like an incentive for companies to look into opening another factory already in summer.

[hef19898]

Just throwing the same numbers in here: The EU ordered 4+ doses per inhabitant by Q4 2020. Deliveries were intially scheduled through Q3 2021, with enough doses to be delivered to reach herd immnity by end of Q2. Not sure how ordering even more, without knowing when said doses would have been available, had helped.

EU politician really screwed up in summer 2020, so. They had, besides ordering (which was outsourced to the EU anyway), one job. Planning and setting up operations to vaccinate millions of people in the first 6 months of 2021. That would have included coordination between patient appointments, manufcturing and deliveries (invlving the EU ideally), making sure back-up plans are in place, getting processes up and running to make it as easy as possible to get vaccinated, making sure manufacturers can get necessary support in securing their upstream supply chains when needed and so on.

None of that happened. Instead, everyone was so, so happy that Europe had a great summer vacation. And then everyone so so hoped the unsurprising increase in cases starting in October would be just go away. And then everybody so so hoped they could safe Christmas shopping and christmas markets, And then everybody fell back to the only lesson they learned during the first wave: people like politicians that act tough. They just din't realise that back then acting tough, read lockdowns, was inline with expert advice. Basically, the EU had over six months to get ready for an EU-wide vaccination campaign. Member states had also 6 months. And did, it seems, by no means enough, if they did anything at all.

This now shows, and everyone is just happy to point at manufacturers and the EU. We'll see how long that story is going to hold water.

[m4rtink]

I can confirm the Czech government did basically nothing to prepare for vaccinations till the very last moment - something resembling a mass vaccination plan was only published on Dezember 22th (!) and only now the system seems to be in somehow working state, likely due to not having that many vaccines to process yet.

[hef19898]

I just hope whatever solutions are in place are able to cope once the vaccine deliveries kick in.

[cmrdporcupine]

FWIW Canada did the same thing and our federal gov't is paying the same political price.

Trump reserved the US manufactured supply for themselves, only, so Canada is reliant on EU exports, which is kind of crazy to think about, geographically.

My understanding is many Canadian officials were caught off guard by the fact that the vaccine became available Q1 2021, they were thinking Q2/Q3 2021 was more likely and so much of the purchase deals were geared around that.

[hef19898]

They ordered one slightly later than the UK and the US (let's ignore Israel which is basically a large scale trial). The main difference: the EU used normal certification processes, just sped them up considerably. The UK and US used emergncy certification.

The volumes the EU ordered initially were absolutely sufficient with 4+ doses per EU inhabitant. Manufacturing capacities were sufficient for that as well. It all started to go south as soon as memeber states looked for scape goats why vaccination happened so slowly. First the manufacturers, then the EU, then the federal government (where applicable). It is a last-mile distribution issue if you will now, not a manufacturing one.

[VBprogrammer]

I think that's a very charitable interpretation of events. Realistically the EU negotiated on behalf of the 27 member countries to try to get the best deal on price, and perhaps more importantly, to avoid the inevitable tensions which would follow from one member country securing more than another member country. This process slowed down the negotiation process.

Whether there is any truth in the EUs certification being conducted differently is a bit moot given they have approved the same vaccines based on the same trial data.

[hef19898]

I don't think it is charitable. The EU had to juggle 27 individual countries, one central certification and Brexit. They had to avoid a situation in which rich countries, e.g. Germany, outbids poorer countries, e.g. Hungary or Greee. They managed to do that. They over purchased, they split orders betwen suppliers thus further minimizing the risk.

And they did all that using normal certification. They even pointed out, quite clearly, that the actual managemen of vaccination campaigns, the vaccine ordering and the national distribution is up to the member states.

The last part shows very different results, e.g. in germany Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is far ahead in per capita vaccines. Bavaria for example is behind them. All we won with focusing on the supply of vaccines so far in a shutdown of Pfizer's pant in Belgium to produce more doses, which are not needed, at a later point of time. And a nasty contract dipute with AZ after the media and, at least IMHO, politians singled out AZ as a scape goat.