[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.

[detaro]

No, one fact does not lead automatically to the other, since we are far from covering half the population. For a good chunk of people answering these polls the question is entirely academic for now, because nobody is offering the vaccine to them (which I assume skews the results, but even we assume it doesn't). If there were a severe lack of people willing to get vaccinated, people wouldn't have difficulties getting appointments. And that part of the population is also running out of patience, and has had it with excuses why we get less than promised. Don't underestimate that other large chunk of society. This is generally a thing: the people that stuck to all the rules + more and (perceive it as) getting nothing for it, while politics/media/... keeps pandering to those calling for less restrictions or even going total denial, are also very much not happy.

It's also clearly stated publicly that at least a million doses are currently being "stockpiled" to get the rollout through local doctors running (i.e. each doctor actually gets a whole 20 doses they can give to patients on the date this is supposed to be the case, nobody wanted the political drama of not giving some doctors the option or having even smaller numbers - and hopefully there is enough further supply to keep at least that rate going per week. The doctors bit is seen as even more important now more people are worried, since especially for the elderly it's assumed talking to their familiar doctor works better to calm those fears than formal invites to a center somewhere).

Similarly, while the reserving second doses has been debated a lot, it's the publicly announced policy (I don't have the exact stats on hand what percentage that is, it was in one of the many dashboards...) and the back-and-forth of who will deliver how much when doesn't exactly makes a change away from that attractive (because if you do change that, deliveries get cut again and suddenly you need to either not give someone a second dose on schedule or take someones appointment for the first away, you will get the blame however much sense it makes overall to accept that risk.).

Again, I'm fully admitting this has not been and is not going as smoothly as it could, but the "it's not needed" narrative is just BS. It makes a nice simple narrative, but that's about it, and ignorance is the most positive interpretation why people might peddle it.

[blub]

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