[thu2111]

This is horrible. There is no difference between the AZ vaccine and Pfizer. One is not "crappy" - you're literally posting this on a thread that says it's safe and effective in multiple studies.

The EU is becoming a disaster zone of vaccine propaganda. I would never have imagined that national governments would become the primary source of anti-vax nonsense. Make no mistake about it - European politicians have been attacking the AZ vaccine because it originates from the UK and they are ideologically blinded by hatred of Brexit. They've been systematically lying about this particular vaccine and no other one right from the start.

They claimed it didn't work: false, based on a "misreading" of a German report. They claimed the UK had blocked export of it: false. They claimed AZ was in contract violation: false. They claimed it was dangerous: false.

Every time one lie is dispelled, another immediately emerges to take its place. And it's coming from people like Merkel and Macron. Unreal.

[dtf]

> European politicians have been attacking the AZ vaccine because it originates from the UK and they are ideologically blinded by hatred of Brexit.

There was a good piece in the Irish Times this weekend if you fancy a less UK-centric view on this. The view you've expressed above seems to be the only one I read among the British press/commentariat. Perhaps it is the UK that is blinded?

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/brexit-blinds-britain-to-...

"The Oxford/AstraZeneca team managed an extraordinary feat – producing a safe and effective vaccine against a novel coronavirus within a few months. Yet time and again, AstraZeneca has undermined its own efforts with communication blunders, a lack of transparency and a consistent record of overestimating its own capacity to deliver."

[thu2111]

Well, we know what the EU press are claiming, but that quoted paragraph isn't true is it? How has AZ undermined its own efforts? Where are the communication problems or lack of transparency? They have been doing pretty clear press releases where they address whatever the latest nonsense de jour is. For example, their response to the claims the vaccine was dangerous was very clear and unambiguous. The confusion here has been generated exclusively by one side.

As for the contract, the Commission released that contract specifically redacted to try and imply it said things it didn't, but they redacted it wrongly. Note that the EU committed itself to secrecy about their agreements as part of negotiating a lower price than other countries are paying. Then a Belgian minister violated that agreement too by publishing the prices. So it's hard to criticise AZ for lack of transparency when no company publishes customer contracts proactively and the EU itself has tried to hide the details of its own agreement as part of misleading the public. We know that the Commission was lying about things partly because they keep accidentally releasing information they intended to be kept secret.

The fact is, the EU has been taking measures and making statements here that are UK specific. When it declared it would require vaccine export licenses it exempted every neighbouring state, except the UK. When it suspended the Northern Ireland protocol over vaccines, it was a UK specific move. Now they are threatening to seize factories and block exports of already paid for vaccines, to the UK. If there's some explanation for this that isn't political it's not obvious what it is, because AZ has done nothing wrong, and nor has the UK.

[luckylion]

> The view you've expressed above seems to be the only one I read among the British press/commentariat.

I'm from Germany, and that has been pretty much my impression as well. Merkel gave vaccine orders as a PR gift to von der Leyen/EU, they messed up badly. While that came out piece by piece, surprise surprise, in came the "mistakes".

I'm sure it's not a large conspiracy, at some point there's enough FUD spread everywhere that everyone's threshold for "pause the campaign" is low enough, "just to be safe", but some parts of it very much did look like revenge.

[blub]

Your whole argument is undermined by the massive orders the EU put for this vaccine and how it was and is fighting to get those orders delivered in spite of all the screw-ups by AZ. Seriously, how do you come up with these conspiracy theories about Brexit hatred and then write with a straight face about "propaganda"?

[thu2111]

What screwups by AZ? There haven't been any, they've been doing the same things as other pharma firms, who have all always said that manufacturing is unpredictable and they'll try to make it all as quickly as possible but can't offer hard guarantees. The idea they're incompetent is more media propaganda - exactly the kind of thing that's causing people to stop taking it in EU states. Probably the Commission should try and fix the large stockpiles going unused due to this type of propaganda before they worry about export bans.

As for Brexit, see my other comment. A lot of the actions the EU has taken have been entirely UK specific. For instance the requirement for export licenses was waived for every non-EU state neighbouring the EU, except the UK.

[detaro]

The meme of "not enough people want to take AZ" needs to die. It's not backed by any reality on the ground, if you have the stuff its not difficult to find people to take it.

[thu2111]

Where did you get that idea? This is not a meme, it's repeats of widely available data and news reports. As of the 17th March nearly half of all delivered vaccines had not been used:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/millions-oxford-astrazeneca-unused...

Germany alone was sitting on over 1 million. The article has a graph showing the backlog in each country. I am very skeptical they have managed to clear this in only 6 days given that around half the European population now incorrectly believes this vaccine is dangerous or useless.

[detaro]

That there aren't enough people that want the vaccine is a meme. There's lots and lots of people waiting for a chance to get it. Number of willing people is not a limiting factor, and won't be for a long time. And it's effing insulting to hear people parrot "Oh Germans don't want to be vaccinated" when at the same time nearly everyone around you is struggling to get an appointment for elderly/vulnerable relatives and would jump at a chance to get it themselves but will have to wait months to even be considered.

(and re numbers, since the 17th Germany has administered 1.2 million vaccinations, "unused" vaccinations can be reserved second doses, ... I certainly won't claim that this is all running perfectly, but any suggestion that more vaccine available wouldn't be used just doesn't make any sense)

[thu2111]

OK, so I get that the data doesn't seem to match your local perception. That's useful to know, thanks.

But the suggestion that more available!=more use does make logical sense given the information available. Lots of vaccines have been stockpiled and more than ~50% of people in Germany/France are telling pollsters that they think the AZ vaccine is dangerous. The link between those two facts is obvious, one would automatically lead to the other. If those stockpiles are reserved for second doses then (a) Germany should adopt the same dosing strategy as the UK, which has by now been proven to work well and (b) they should just say that because it would change the politics of the situation considerably. Currently British politicians are saying outright that it makes no sense for the EU to threaten to block exports when they aren't using what they've got. If that's a misunderstanding it's easy to fix, but I haven't seen any such suggestion before and your phrasing (can be) suggests that this is speculation on your part, not a known fact.

[blub]

Missing every delivery target counts for you as success? Your business partners/managers will likely disagree.