Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

The EU has also obliterated its demand for the vaccine so they will end up with a big stockpile that nobody will take because of the stupidity of Macron, Merkel and Charles Michel, telling everyone about blood clots, low efficacy rates in over 65's etc etc

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

They are only used to making threats,. NOT recieving them Meg !!

Donkeyman! 👎👎

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

All I see when I read about this matter is contradiction!

Do we, or do we not make the Oxford-AZ vaccine in this country?
If as I believe we do, why are we concerned about the EU blocking exports of this particular vaccine to us? Oh, I'm sure I know why they do it. It's because they resent the loss of their biggest cash-cow. But why does it matter if they block it?

Do we, or do we not make the Pfizer vaccine in this country?
I have heard that we do, and I've heard that we don't! Obviously, many Brits have already been vaccinated with it, so where did that come from?
Do the Americans also refuse to export it to us? Same question: where did the earlier vaccines come from?

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

I read a similar article just now in the DE but the DE's version went on to say that it would be unlikely that BJ would, in fact, endorse such a ban - mores the pity. If only he had the cajones to just SAY he was contemplating a ban on exporting this raw material, what would the EU do?

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

I agree. The more I hear, the more I believe that Boris is just May in trousers.
He's lost my vote already.

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

Deliberately preventing people from having the vaccine is likely to cause death. It is tantamount to murder.

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

Hi

It is a self inflicted wound for the EU.

The. only export they have blocked is one to Australia.

The Australian s will now block the EU joining the Asian Trade Block.

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

I don't know about that - so many trade blocs in Asia - but I think you can write off any chance of the Australian/EU FTA being signed any time soon.

Last December a strategic partnership was signed between ASEAN and the EU

https://www.dfat.gov.au/internationa...itecture/asean

However I can't see them becoing a member of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

https://asean.org/?static_post=rcep-...ic-partnership

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

Correct.
And yet the EU and numerous countries within the union have been doing just that to their own citizens for reasons already widely discussed.

What happens in the future regarding their current behaviour should be interesting because already they are paying the price with more infections; more deaths; and lockdowns as well as obviously delaying any reduction in restrictions which is affecting their economies.
I say "should be" because we know from past experience with the EU that they do their darndest to wriggle out of negative allegations and when that fails their investigations can take years.

Look at the Santer Commission corruption farce for an excellent example and note Von Der Leyen's past and how she achieved the position she currently holds to recognize that things have probably not changed very much within the EU.

Re: EU About to Block Vaccine For the UK.

Why should Boris join an infantile spat?
No, he's far better off doing just as he is now and letting the EU spit their dummies out IMHO.
They're doing a great job of making themselves the laughing-stock of the world all on their own without us sinking to their level.

Boris and his team have enough smarts to know that there are more ways than one of skinning the proverbial.

"Under a plan hatched in Whitehall, ministers are now working at pace on bringing as much production onshore to stop the risk that other countries can disrupt the process of getting jabs into British arms.

One Number 10 source said: “There is a lot of domestic production already. We are always looking at ways we can increase vaccine production in the UK. The Government is looking at ways vaccine supplies can be increased all the time.”

Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business secretary, is understood to have held talks with Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, about how to accelerate production.

I've spoken elsewhere in these forums about UK plans dating back to 2018 for mass-production of vaccines with our VMIC which is almost ready (see below) and more.
In combination with Oxford's research, that's where the revised vaccines will come from that will combat variants of Covid.
The plan is to produce up to 70 million vaccine doses every four to six months.
That alone will surely be more than enough for our own needs, and if we are seen to export surplus to poorer countries .................

"The minister said: “The EU has monumentally ballsed this up. Madness! And then to play games and have a pop at AstraZeneca through bitterness and opportunism.

“And now it's coming back to bite them because they cannot get their population to take it. We will be the only coronavirus free country in Europe in August or September.”

The new Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire (which will be able to produce tens of millions of vaccines a year) is due to open this October after its build time was accelerated last year.

The Government is also working with Wockhardt, one of the largest generic pharmaceutical companies in the UK, to provide ‘fill and finish’ services as part of the effort to accelerate vaccine manufacturing in the UK.

Other plants are planned for Livingston in Scotland to produce the Valneva vaccine and in Darlington, where a Centre for Process Innovation will be built.

Ministers are also hoping Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine will be approved by regulators in the UK ready for a rollout in the UK this summer."

That (to me) just about sums it up, and highlights the huge difference between the UK's approach and that of the EU.

The UK has funded research and manufacturing, both beforehand and at an early stage in the pandemic too and not just into research by universities as well as multiple pharmaceutical companies but into manufacturing here within the UK.
The EU (or rather Germany) has funded one successful company's research (BioNtech) but mostly has simply bought vaccines from pharmaceutical companies, and late-on in the pandemic at that.

It's pretty clear to me just whose strategy has been the most successful so far.


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...amps-pressure/

https://www.ukri.org/news/prime-mini...vation-centre/