It's not the EU though is it? It's individual countries doing what they want just like we did about vaccine contracts last year when we were still in the EU and like we could have done in many policy areas but didn't and then blamed the EU....
Balls up all round really, EU cocked up getting enough vaccines and then certain countries have seemed to panic when they got them, possibly not helped by their initial distrust of the AZ vaccine. All seems barmy to me
Yet, they've vaccinated near enough twice as many people as the UK (~50m to ~25m), and many of the individual member states have fully vaccinated twice as many people pro-rata as the UK (some 3x) Although, those staunch EU members Iceland and Thailand have also paused (and restarted for Thailand) vaccinations. It still isn't approved for use in the USA either...
I'm sure there isn't a jot of jingoistic tubthumping about any of this at all. And if it had been say a French vaccine and say a couple of British people had died from clotting issues, I'm completely certain the media, the right wing in particular, would be completely at ease and make the same comments without trying to win non existent battles against a fake enemy. I'm sure.
Actual vaccination numbers, totals and pro rata. It's not a competition though. Covid-19 vaccine tracker (ft.com)
Just for balance, there are 7.5 x as many people to vaccinate in the eu. The US have just finished a completely separate sets of trials of the AZ vaccine involving 30000 participants and therefore their regulators are only about to study the data before deciding to approve or not. To the best of my knowledge Thailand are not and never have been members of the eu
I think the Thailand quip was a thinly veiled attempt to dilute the notion and accusations that it's the EU who are playing politics over this, as opposed to individual states within. I do like the notion that 27 countries vaccinating twice as many folk as just 1 is worthy of celebrating though. Good stuff.
I’m alright Jaques, had mine. & I was born with irregular heart beat causing clots & stroke later. Might even explain my unique sense of timing, when in bands.
You do talk some bo**ox to fit your agenda to the extent of manipulating statistics. I despair. Comparing one country to 27?? . Also the UK choice to vaccinate large numbers with single doses rather than double dosing fewer people has actually turned out to be exactly what is now being suggested by many member states as best way forward. If you look at the stats for the percentage population for each country in that have received at least one doses, and the number per 100 of the population then UK is absolutely miles ahead on both counts. There is no single state within the EU regardless of population size that is even close to the UK. The Infection rates, unlike the UK, are soaring throughout Europe (UK being an exception, the pace of the vaccination programme which has virtually stalled here in Italy is abysmal and yet you persist with defending the EU. The reason individual states originally signed up to the programme was a good one to avoid the dog eat dog mentality and ensure the large states France, Germany etc did not swallow up the supply. Unfortunately, they have been let down badly by the EMA and the EU commission and realised too late that they should have sought to independently source more supplies. The whole thing has become a mess and trust in the EU commission and EMA has reached the point where individual member states are suspending use of the AZ against the advice of both the EMA and WHO. Some of this is political since the EU are trying to deflect blame for their failing. This in turn is damaging people confidence in the whole vaccine programme and individual regions have now stopping use of the vaccine and throwing thousands of spoilt or time expired vials away.
So, as the vaccines have a shelf life and certain countries dont want them, can we have them or what?
I have said this before & will repeat my thoughts , the vaccination roll out in the UK has been magnificent & credit to everyone who has been involved , long may it continue
I've got to say this sitting at the other side of the water...I wish Ireland the EU had been half as organised as the UK has been. I'm 61 and have no clue when I'm likely to be vaccinated but it aint looking anytime this side of August.
I wasn't actually disputing that the EU countries were far behind the UK proportionally - who are in turn, far behind Israel and the UAE per head of population - for the first dose. Incidentally, Chile is about to overtake the UK (per 100 people) and didn't start vaccinating until February 1st! You have to be factually correct, and the EU countries have between them vaccinated roughly twice as many people as the UK (out of a much larger population), are vaccinating at a faster rate combined than the UK (the difference has increased from ~8 to ~25m in 2 weeks) and many have vaccinated 2-3x more per 100 with the full dose. Chances are the UK and EU will both finish their vaccination programs within a month or so of each other in late summer 2021. Germany paused using the AZ vaccine after finding that around 15 in 1m vaccinated people were reporting a rare kind of cerebral blood clot in the last 2 months - which normally affects ~4-6 per 1m annually - so roughly 20-30x the normal rate. These results have not been found in the UK. This could be a statistically anomaly, bad reporting (under here or over there), a faulty batch or a shedload of other reasons. It could also be that it is just an unfortunate side effect of using the vaccine and the regulators will resume it shortly having decided that the risk is lower than Covid. In counterpoint as well, the J&J one-shot vaccine is approved in the EU, but isn't yet in the UK. Yes, they were slow with the initial vaccine approvals, but haven't always been slower than the UK. As for infection rates, the current pro-rata rate in the UK is double Denmark, three times Greece and four times Norway (who also aren't in the EU and have paused the AZ vaccine), roughly comparable to France and lower than Latvia, Lithuania and especially Czechia (not counting Andorra or San Marino due to their small populations). Even within those countries, some areas are doing much better than others - Barnsley is among the worst in the UK, and Ile-De-France is close to going into a local lockdown due to soaring rates. You can't just generalize and say "its soaring everywhere", because it isn't. But some places are having a very bad time at the moment. Neither are Iceland (or Norway) - and I believe at least one African country (Kenya?) has raised concerns as well as Thailand. That doesn't mean that there is a problem - I certainly hope there isn't (wife had it on Sunday), but the AZ vaccine isn't actually licenced for sale in the UK either... You look to be Group 11 (or 12) provided you have no other health issues and are scheduled between April and June from the latest one I could find - although that appears to be a little out of date.
@Scoff I wouldn't bother arguing mate, Brexit has now turned into a religion so you might as well argue with a devout Catholic about the existence of god.
Cheers. They've revised their targets downwards about three times in the last week or so so I'm not holding my breath.
