Bringing goods from the EU

[D_W]

This is the kind of comment someone who hasn't followed what has happened would make.

Doses are administered in the UK so far at a rate 4-10 times higher than europe. Even in the US where there is loud complaining about the slow distribution, we're 2 to 7 times or so higher than the european vaccine rates.

What am I missing - if you weren't in the EU, you would've been able to just roll your own and do as you please?

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita

 

[D_W]

I see in the "fact check" article "oh, there were special exclusions that would've allowed the UK to approve and distribute unlicensed vaccines, anyway".

It's naive to think that would've just gone over without any resistance. You can do a lot of things. Whether or not they would've been done that way is a completely different thing. I could just see the criticism "we shouldn't move faster than the full EU, it's not safe".

The statement would be more accurately put as "brexit likely has reduced time to approval for viable vaccines and increased distribution time without having to rely on regulatory caveats that may have been controversial or cumbersome".

 

[D_W]

(However, success is punished if it comes under the wrong circumstances...that's politics).

 

[Blackswanwood]

Doses are administered in the UK so far at a rate 4-10 times higher than europe. Even in the US where there is loud complaining about the slow distribution, we're 2 to 7 times or so higher than the european vaccine rates.

What am I missing - if you weren't in the EU, you would've been able to just roll your own and do as you please?

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita

We're not in the EU and have done our own thing and are ahead of the EU.

The EU are now complaining that they getting their delivery from Astra Zeneca after the UK.

My point is that arguably it's one instance of us having "regained our sovereignty" being better for us. Admittedly it's the only one I can see.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I see in the "fact check" article "oh, there were special exclusions that would've allowed the UK to approve and distribute unlicensed vaccines, anyway".

It's naive to think that would've just gone over without any resistance. You can do a lot of things. Whether or not they would've been done that way is a completely different thing. I could just see the criticism "we shouldn't move faster than the full EU, it's not safe".

The statement would be more accurately put as "brexit likely has reduced time to approval for viable vaccines and increased distribution time without having to rely on regulatory caveats that may have been controversial or cumbersome".

You've missed the point - I'm talking about placing orders for the drug not approval. The EU bought their vaccines as a collective. We bought our own much earlier.

 

[Jacob]

You've missed the point - I'm talking about placing orders for the drug not approval. The EU bought their vaccines as a collective. We bought our own much earlier.

......whilst we still were in the EU. The EU had nothing to do with it either way.
The only surprise is that we seem to be ahead of the game on this, although behind on everything else, with the worst per capita deaths in the world.

 

[Rorschach]

......whilst we still were in the EU. The EU had nothing to do with it either way

We weren't in the EU, we left in Jan 2020.

 

[Jacob]

We weren't in the EU, we left in Jan 2020.

We were still in transition until Jan this year, which basically meant no change until the oven ready deal was signed.

 

[Blackswanwood]

We were still in transition until Jan this year, which basically meant no change until the oven ready deal was signed.

With respect I think that is a different point to how we bought our vaccines.

 

[Jacob]

With respect I think that is a different point to how we bought our vaccines.

The point is we weren't constrained by the EU over this or many other things. So far there are no examples of benefits from our regained "sovereignty"

 

[Phil Pascoe]

......whilst we still were in the EU. The EU had nothing to do with it either way.

The EU threatened Germany and the Netherlands (and possibly others) with court action if they acted independently. Germany is now blaming the UK for getting the vaccine first rather than blaming the EU, which of course is at fault.
edit - We weren't constrained by the EU over this? Of course we would have been. Just like the others.

 

[Rorschach]

We were still in transition until Jan this year, which basically meant no change until the oven ready deal was signed.

So you admit you were wrong then, we weren't in the EU.

 

[Blackswanwood]

The point is we weren't constrained by the EU over this or many other things. So far there are no examples of benefits from our regained "sovereignty"

But isn't it the case that if we had not left the EU we would have been in with them moving at the pace of the slowest and buying as part of their bulk deal.

I'm not arguing Brexit is a good thing and as I've already said I cannot yet see any other benefits but as luck would have it we could move faster than the rest and have benefited. I do wonder if you are just determined to refuse to accept that there could be the odd benefit (even if outweighed by disadvantages in the round) for the sake of it?

 

[Noel]

The EU threatened Germany and the Netherlands (and possibly others) with court action if they acted independently. Germany is now blaming the UK for getting the vaccine first rather than blaming the EU, which of course is at fault.
edit - We weren't constrained by the EU over this? Of course we would have been. Just like the others.

No, it’s a contractual issue between AZ and the EU. AZ cannot deliver according to the contract.
PS- got links to EU threats to Germany? Haven’t seen mention of that.

 

[D_W]

You've missed the point - I'm talking about placing orders for the drug not approval. The EU bought their vaccines as a collective. We bought our own much earlier.

Imagine the criticism you'd have received for "hoarding" by ordering earlier, regardless of the rules. I expect if the EU remains slow, they'll start pointing fingers at others. But that's also politics.

There was an article about this in our AP news wire. Israel has dosed 40% of the population at least once. UAE at a high percentage just below that, and for some reason, Serbia is at the head of the pack in the EU (are they using russian vaccines?). The article raised the question as to why the EU has been so slow to order when it's not a supply issue at this point.

In the US, it's a supply issue - there are so many commercial health care providers that could administer the vaccine that they're just sitting and waiting. We get emails from them all the time - hoping that we'll go to them for vaccination instead of the health plans. My health plan had enough to do all of their staff and nursing home residents (which is about 10% of the local population).

My parents live in an area with fewer health care workers by proportion and fewer nursing home residents and were vaccinated last week. It took 3 days for them to get scheduled.

Apparently, the issue here also is the scheduling groups are going willy nilly and doing no confirmation. If they have a 10% cancel rate, some of the doses are going to waste, so the health systems themselves have started packing relatives of their employees in based on risk level (as in, ahead of the priority classes in the general population). They can screen their own employees and get relatives in faster so as not to waste the doses.

I suppose this is yet another advantage of having a combination public, private not for profit and private for profit systems - we can easily administer the vaccines faster than we can get them.

 

[D_W]

But isn't it the case that if we had not left the EU we would have been in with them moving at the pace of the slowest and buying as part of their bulk deal.

It's not the case that you would have been required to. I wonder how much work and red tape would be involved in exercising the exceptions and documenting them. Something you don't have to do now.

I'd imagine there's a fair chance that your gov. would've had some part wishing to do that and others wishing to go with the EU system (for thoroughness and safety).

I was a little bit incensed here, actually, about the US approving vaccines slower. We also heard bloviation about how the US wouldn't be able to administer vaccines efficiently because we don't have a centralized system, and how far behind we'd be compared to europe. It's almost a joke - the pharmacies here that do vaccinations are more than happy to distribute anything they can, and if the health systems lag at all, the public goes to the private options.

 

[sploo]

Oh come on, stop it.
George Osbournes figures were so far out he looked like a right pineapple. He lied.
I have never said that job is going to cost £800,000 and then found it cost nothing to make.
George to use your words, knowingly told people a false figure.

Osborne was/is a waste of skin and oxygen - no argument there. Did he outright deliberately lie? I'm not sure I'd actually put him as smart enough to come up with a coherent deception; my money would be incompetence due to lack of ability in his field. Basically like Nadine Dorries passionately rejecting Theresa May's Withdrawal Deal because it would leave us with no MEPs.

 

[sploo]

edit - We weren't constrained by the EU over this? Of course we would have been. Just like the others.

As detailed by the link I posted earlier (Vaccine approval isn’t quicker because of Brexit) we were not constrained. Pertinent quote:

"...since 2012, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has been free, under regulation 174, to give temporary approval to an unlicensed medicinal product in the case of certain types of public health threat, such as a pandemic.

When the MHRA approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for use in the UK on 2 December, the government press release accompanying this announcement made clear that approval was given under regulation 174.

The government has previously said that “if a suitable Covid-19 vaccine candidate, with strong supporting evidence of safety, quality and effectiveness from clinical trials becomes available before the end of the transition period, EU legislation which we have implemented via regulation 174 of the Human Medicines Regulations allows the MHRA to temporarily authorise the supply of a medicine or vaccine, based on public health need."

 

[doctor Bob]

In that case my work is done.
Was it a joke? What do you think?

I'd like to think it was a joke.

 

[doctor Bob]

Sploo you say, Tomato we say Tomato