When will this shit end?

[zahidf]

People have already sacrificed a a year to this virus, and now they are being told they must forgo any chance of an escape abroad over the summer because of the nebulous threat of vaccine resistant variants (all vaccines prevent serious disease in all variants, any new variant could just as easily spring up in the UK). People are well within their rights to want a foreign trip this summer (and of course its not exactly affordable for many to holiday in the UK anyway)

In any case, Foreign travel isn't just "holibobs". The UK has a large number of citizens abroad or citizens with family living abroad. Now of course there may be situations where it really is necessary to shut the borders entirely, but there is a real human cost to every restriction that becomes harder to justify as more and more of the population are vaccinated. It should not be such an easy choice.

[DeanoL]

13 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

So in summary, you support vaccine nationalism ?

Don't we all?

The alternative would be all doses going to someone like the UN and having them apportioned out due to need, which no-one seems to be seriously suggesting.

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

People have already sacrificed a a year to this virus, and now they are being told they must forgo any chance of an escape abroad over the summer because of the nebulous threat of vaccine resistant variants (all vaccines prevent serious disease in all variants, any new variant could just as easily spring up in the UK). People are well within their rights to want a foreign trip this summer (and of course its not exactly affordable for many to holiday in the UK anyway)

In any case, Foreign travel isn't just "holibobs". The UK has a large number of citizens abroad or citizens with family living abroad. Now of course there may be situations where it really is necessary to shut the borders entirely, but there is a real human cost to every restriction that becomes harder to justify as more and more of the population are vaccinated. It should not be such an easy choice.

I do wonder if it's in part because we don't want unvaccinated EU tourists coming here, but can't afford to fuck over our tourism industry this summer, ergo force everyone to holiday in the UK.

[Crazyfool01]

6 minutes ago, zahidf said:

People have already sacrificed a a year to this virus,

I prefer to think of it today as people sacrificing a year to help others ...... today of all days its important to recognise the achievements of everyone and put some of the bickering behind us ... and hopefully look forward to a better summer and things improving slowly but surely from now on ...

[zahidf]

 

As the two sides negotiate over how to divide up the limited supply of shots from a new Astra facility due to come on stream in the next few weeks, the EU is insisting that it should get the lion’s share because is has a far bigger population and because its vaccination program is running some way behind the U.K., according to two EU officials.

 

 

 

[steviewevie]

12 minutes ago, zahidf said:

People have already sacrificed a a year to this virus, and now they are being told they must forgo any chance of an escape abroad over the summer because of the nebulous threat of vaccine resistant variants (all vaccines prevent serious disease in all variants, any new variant could just as easily spring up in the UK). People are well within their rights to want a foreign trip this summer (and of course its not exactly affordable for many to holiday in the UK anyway)

In any case, Foreign travel isn't just "holibobs". The UK has a large number of citizens abroad or citizens with family living abroad. Now of course there may be situations where it really is necessary to shut the borders entirely, but there is a real human cost to every restriction that becomes harder to justify as more and more of the population are vaccinated. It should not be such an easy choice.

Good for the environment though.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

As the two sides negotiate over how to divide up the limited supply of shots from a new Astra facility due to come on stream in the next few weeks, the EU is insisting that it should get the lion’s share because is has a far bigger population and because its vaccination program is running some way behind the U.K., according to two EU officials.

 

 

 

does that actually make much difference?

[incident]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

As the two sides negotiate over how to divide up the limited supply of shots from a new Astra facility due to come on stream in the next few weeks, the EU is insisting that it should get the lion’s share because is has a far bigger population and because its vaccination program is running some way behind the U.K., according to two EU officials.

 

 

 

It's not a new facility - it's one that's been in place for ages and prior to this row had shipped plenty of doses to the UK.

[phillyfaddle]

28 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

I think we are about to get a big uptick in cases generally in the UK - hearing about a domino effect in schools at the moment.  Only on the grape vine.

Agree. It's since schools went back. My OH's secondary school is affected, but it's not made the local press. Another local school sent half year 10 and year 8 home on Day 4 after re-opening. It's going to be the end of March before we see the impacts on hospital admissions, as the teenagers pass it onto the older members of their families.

Edited March 23, 2021 by phillyfaddle

[Ozanne]

9 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

I prefer to think of it today as people sacrificing a year to help others ...... today of all days its important to recognise the achievements of everyone and put some of the bickering behind us ... and hopefully look forward to a better summer and things improving slowly but surely from now on ...

Indeed, the measures we have taken have been necessary to save lives and help our health service. 

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, phillyfaddle said:

Agree. It's since schools went back. My OH's secondary school is affected, but it's not made the local press. Another local school sent half year 10 and year 8 home on Day 4 after re-opening. It's going to be the end of March before we see the impacts on hospital admissions, as the teenagers pass it onto the older members of their families.

if it becomes an issue that requires hospitalisation ... hopefully it won't with the older adults and vulnerable having had the first jab at least 

[DeanoL]

6 minutes ago, incident said:

It's not a new facility - it's one that's been in place for ages and prior to this row had shipped plenty of doses to the UK.

That's my understanding too. I think it's all the confusion around stuff like this that makes me think something more is going on.

[incident]

30 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The EU may have been a bit slow authorising it, but it wasn't submitted for authorisation by AZ until after it was already being used in the UK. During which time it seems both factories producing it in the EU were sending it straight to the UK.

Then we have the same issue again with the Halix factory - the paperwork for approval was not submitted to the EEA until recently, so again, up until then the vaccines produced were being sent to the UK.

In both cases, it's happened slowly because AZ didn't apply for approval. Not because the EU were slow to approve it. 

Now, my day job is project management, and you can bet for sure that if I were in the EU's position I'd be on to AZ every day asking why the hell they hadn't submitted for approval yet, and how the hell they expected to reach their contractual obligations while mucking about not asking for approval. So it's not like the EU is innocent on this.

But it sure as hell looks like AZ were dragging their heels on submitting for approval, as that would mean they could continue to use the EU factories to supplement the UK supply as long as possible (one pissed off customer is better than two).

As I understand it, the difference in approvals between the UK and the EU goes a lot deeper than whether AZ submitted the approvals to one but not the other - it's that the UK actively chased this and went out of their way to ensure that they had all the information they needed and that where necessary they took steps to help the factories meet the requirements - the MHRA literally sent people to Halix to both investigate and assist, in anticipation that it'd be one of the places supplying doses whereas the EMA sat back and waited.

So if the UK did get any degree of preferential treatment, in terms of getting doses from those EU factories, it's by making themselves the easier customer to deal with.

[steviewevie]

this bloke has done a thread on AZ and EU/UK...and the Halix plant that is suddenly all important....

 

[phillyfaddle]

1 minute ago, Barry Fish said:

The key question is how many convert to hospital admissions and deaths.  We are at a point of Russian roulette a little it feels with priory groups still not fully covered 

Yes, that is the key question. We'll have the answers in a week or two I guess. My feeling is that we won't see a surge like we've done before due to the vaccination programme. But of course, that also depends on which C-19 variant is being spread and how effective these vaccines are against it. 

My OH caught C-19 from school last March (kids brought it back from skiing hols in northern Italy over the Feb half term) and passed it to me. Quite a few of his colleagures were badly hit by it too. So much for kids not being transmitters...that Deputy CMO Jenny Harries has a lot to answer for 😡 We had it fairly mild luckily, though for me the fatigue episodes lasted for 6 months. Had my first vacc last week and felt ropey for a few days, but all good now.

[Andre91]

We've currently got around 80 Year 7 students isolating after 4 positive cases at the tail end of last week, which is around a third of the year group. In Year 9, there's around 40-45 off as a result of 3 positive cases too. 

It isn't as bad as I was expecting. 

[phillyfaddle]

11 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

if it becomes an issue that requires hospitalisation ... hopefully it won't with the older adults and vulnerable having had the first jab at least 

Yes indeed, hopefully not. We'll know in a couple of weeks, I guess!

[phillyfaddle]

2 minutes ago, Andre91 said:

We've currently got around 80 Year 7 students isolating after 4 positive cases at the tail end of last week, which is around a third of the year group. In Year 9, there's around 40-45 off as a result of 3 positive cases too. 

It isn't as bad as I was expecting. 

Looks like the safety measures that schools have put in place are helping. Great news.

[Havors]

5 hours ago, eFestivals said:

Jugoto the beach and look at the sea.

Good one! haha the jokes are being outdone by your dodgy phone typing though 😄 

[Hannibal Schmitt]

32 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Don't we all?

The alternative would be all doses going to someone like the UN and having them apportioned out due to need, which no-one seems to be seriously suggesting.

I do wonder if it's in part because we don't want unvaccinated EU tourists coming here, but can't afford to fuck over our tourism industry this summer, ergo force everyone to holiday in the UK.

Couldn`t it be that the opening up on 21 June will also be the date for starting the travel/tourism sector again? 

Europe would have vaccinated many of their people by then. Together with testing travelling in europe would be expected as early as 1 June with the green vaccine certificate/passport.

It would save the summer season for all tourism industries and countries including Uk. It would be another date on the roadmap and also be dependent on certain developments like variants or european roll out.

[Ozanne]

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Ozanne

[Hannibal Schmitt]

19 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

this bloke has done a thread on AZ and EU/UK...and the Halix plant that is suddenly all important....

 

Might be interesting - report from German Tagesschau (ARD) on this topic, came just minutes ago:

The EU has ordered 300 million vaccine doses from AstraZeneca - so far only a fraction has been delivered. Brussels now wants to use all "available means" to get the cans that have been ordered. For the corona vaccine from the British-Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca, an EU ban on exports is becoming increasingly likely. In the EU Parliament, the Commission announced that it would take decisive action against the delivery failures. "We will act" and "use all the tools that are available to us to get the doses," said Sandra Gallina, Director General for Health. How exactly this could look like, however, the Italian left open. AstraZeneca is clearly lagging behind with its deliveries to the EU. Instead of the originally targeted 120 million vaccine doses, only 30 million should come in the first quarter, and 70 instead of 180 million doses in the second quarter. The delivery failures and the bumpy vaccination start would have seriously damaged the reputation of the EU institutions, said Gallina. "This poor performance by AstraZeneca has created a reputational problem for all of us, be it the Commission or the member states. Yes, it's a shame." Many people die because the vaccine is not delivered. AstraZeneca justifies the supply bottlenecks with the fact that the problems mainly occurred in production facilities in the EU. Gallina, on the other hand, said that according to the contract, the company had to supply the European market from five production sites. Instead, it only produces it in a single plant. Brussels is above all in the dispute with Great Britain, which has so far been significantly less affected by delivery problems at AstraZeneca and at the same time imports large quantities of vaccines from other manufacturers from the EU. At the center of the debate about export restrictions is now a plant in the Netherlands, which is soon to start production of AstraZeneca vaccine. According to information from Brussels and London, the EU and Great Britain each claim future production for themselves. Commission representative Gallina ruled out that the EU would also block vaccine exports from other manufacturers. BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna, for example, would fulfill their obligations to the EU, "and that is what counts for us," said the Italian. The topic should also come up at the video summit of the EU heads of state and government on Thursday and Friday. A Dutch government official spoke out in favor of a compromise in principle. An export ban would be a "lose-lose scenario". The Hague will follow the Commission's decision - and if necessary enforce the export ban, he added. Chancellor Angela Merkel assured EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen her support. But she also spoke out against "general export bans" for corona vaccines.

[DeanoL]

3 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Just more evidence they got it wrong and all they have is an export ban which will kill more people.

How will it kill more people?

[Andre91]

2 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Still quite an impact though.  At the height of it back in November / December my wife school had pretty much 2/3 of the school out.  The whole thing became pointless.

We were in a similar position for a little bit, with 3 whole year groups out at one point. Thankfully, I can't foresee it getting to that point again. 

We're going to be fine 🙂 

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

They block jabs - we block materials - less jabs - slower vaccine program - more deaths

It isn't rocket science.

The problem is, like it or not (and I don't like it) - redirecting jabs from the UK to the EU right now will actually save more lives, as they're still injecting people with a high chance of dying from it.

If we retaliate by blocking materials it'll be us who are causing the deaths.

[JoeyT]

3 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Just more evidence they got it wrong and all they have is an export ban which will kill more people.

That's what I got from that thread as well albeit due to the current issues with volume of covid cases in the EU by them keeping the vaccines it saves more lives does it not?

I'm finding it quite a difficult thing to process now as of course I want the UK to have the benefit of the vaccines in question however our vaccination programme is so much more advanced we are actually better protected.

Hopefully a compromise can be struck most likely at the 11th hour as per usual.

It would just be good to hear some accountability from either the EU, UK or AZ in regards to the actual facts (although I also realise this is impossible as everyone wants to save face somehow!)