Coronavirus: EU 'not ready' to share COVID vaccines with poorer countries Despite earlier promises, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has said the bloc cannot donate COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries while it struggles with its own supply. The UK slammed the move as "counterproductive." https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-e...vid-vaccines-with-poorer-countries/a-56944274
We should be invoking the Defense Production Act to accelerate production for our allies as well. There is a bit of an attitude setting in in this country thats says "we pretty much have the vaccines and the supply in the pipeline that we need, we just need a little more time for it to play out." No. America First but then "our cup must runneth over" for our Allies. As we did with the ventilators. If the Brits are in trouble we must help them out. The Astraz operations, for example, must still be whipped like dogs to produce under the defense act, to produce even if it does not go to Americans.
Boris Johnson steps up fight to stop EU block on Covid vaccines Brussels leaders told to back off amid huge test boost for Oxford vaccine https://www.standard.co.uk/news/pol...block-covid-vaccines-astrazeneca-b925526.html Boris Johnson today stepped up a battle to prevent the European Commission blocking supplies of the Oxford vaccine to Britain as the life-saving jab passed American trials with flying colours. Senior ministers warned Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to back away from “vaccine nationalism”. They were reacting to comments made overnight by EU officials threatening to ban exports to Britain of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine being made at a Dutch plant. In remarks aimed personally at Ms von der Leyen, health minister Helen Whately said: “Vaccine nationalism, this kind of speculation and threat about limiting supply, doesn’t do anybody any good.” The same message was being delivered by the Prime Minister in phone calls to European leaders ahead of a decision-making summit on Thursday. A No10 official told the Evening Standard: “VDL [von der Leyen] confirmed earlier this year that the focus on their mechanism was on transparency and not intended to restrict export by companies fulfilling contractual responsibilities. “As we have said, we would expect the EU to continue to stand by its commitment.” Meanwhile, Minister for London Paul Scully commented acidly that EU leaders had undermined their own vaccination roll-out by “discrediting” the Oxford jab and whipping up distrust in the not-for-profit medicine that costs just £3 a dose. In other key developments: New hope was given to millions around the world by the results of large-scale safety trials of the Oxford jab involving 32,000 volunteers in the US, Chile and Peru. They showed it to be 79 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic disease and an incredible 100 per cent effective at preventing serious illness and hospitalisation. The data is seen as paving the way for official US approval of the vaccine, which is already being rolled out in Asian countries. New polling laid bare the potentially-tragic consequences of sniping by EU leaders at the Oxford jab over recent weeks. YouGov exposed a big increase in distrust of the vaccine across the EU, in the wake of unfounded claims such as French president Emmanuel Macron saying it was “quasi ineffective in the over-65s”. A worrying 61 per cent of French people now think the Oxford jab is unsafe, up 18 points in a month. Only 23 per cent think it is safe, down 10 points. In Germany, a clear majority of 55 per cent thought it unsafe, up 15 points. In Spain, 52 per cent say it was unsafe, up an astonishing 27 points. In Italy it was 43 per cent, up 27 points. In the UK, a healthy 77 per cent say it is safe, down four. Only nine per cent of Britons think it unsafe, up four. A “traffic light system” could enable overseas travel to countries deemed safe from dangerous mutations of Covid-19, a Government adviser has said. Professor Andrew Hayward, from University College London, a member of the Nervtag advisory group, said there could be red lights for travel to South Africa and South America, but green lights might be possible to a few destinations, and with other destinations requiring “vaccine certificates, testing and maybe quarantine”. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told LBC: “I don’t think the EU is helping itself here. I don’t think it has helped itself much in the last few weeks and months on the whole question of the vaccine. I don’t think that they should go down this road of banning exports.” Central London faces long-term economic “scarring” from the pandemic with almost 100,000 jobs at risk over the next two years, a major report by the Greater London Authority warned. Vaccine tensions today focused on a single plant, Halix, in Leiden, Netherlands, which is sub-contracted to supply millions of doses of the Oxford/AZ product to the UK. Thursday’s EU summit will consider whether to invoke powers to halt the supply, even though the factory’s output is not currently approved for use in the EU. EU officials told news agency Reuters: “The Brits are insisting that the Halix plant in the Netherlands must deliver the drug substance produced there to them. That doesn’t work. What is produced in Halix has to go to the EU.” AstraZeneca has contracts with both the UK and the EU that list Halix as a supplier, but the UK deals were struck months earlier, and the EU contracts only promise “best efforts”. Mr Scully said on Twitter: “EU blocks exports from a Dutch plant that’s not approved by the EU to produce vaccines for their own use, that EU leaders have spent weeks discrediting, leading to EU population worried about AZ vaccine. Doubling down on every occasion for what reason?” Several European countries paused roll-out of the vaccine amid concerns of a possible link with blood clots. Significantly, the US trial showed that among people aged over-65 the Oxford jab gave 80 per cent protection, underlining that president Macron’s past claims were nonsense. Ms Whately refused to rule out UK retaliation in interviews with Sky and the BBC. “I don’t think it is very helpful to speculate at the moment,” she told the BBC’s Today. Key ingredients for the Pfizer vaccine are supplied by the UK, and in theory could be held up. Sir Keir told LBC: “I don’t think that they [the EU] should go down this road of banning exports. “What we want is this resolved as quickly as possible because we don’t want any shortage in vaccines to interrupt the roll-out in this country. “Where contracts have been signed, they need to be honoured.” Across the EU, barely one in 10 adults have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine — while in the UK the figure is more than half. A record-breaking 844,285 jabs were given to people in Britain on Saturday. Mrs von der Leyen said that 41 million vaccine doses have been exported from the EU to 33 countries in six weeks, with more than 10 million jabs going to the UK. But she has said the bloc was still waiting for vaccine exports from the UK. She warned last week that if supplies in Europe do not improve, the EU “will reflect whether exports to countries who have higher vaccination rates than us are still proportionate”.
GWB gets dumber by the day. One of your extreme liberal idol Gavin Newsom shows how incompetent he is by not able to distribute vaccines in a timely manner to those who need it. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/california-among-worst-getting-vaccines-215700102.html
The US is about to reach a surprise milestone: too many vaccines, not enough takers The challenge will be convincing enough outliers to get vaccinated so that America can return to normality. https://www.technologyreview.com/20...es-covid19-vaccine-surplus-not-enough-people/ The US has administered more than 118 million doses of covid-19 vaccines so far, and millions more are being injected every day. So far, demand from people who are desperate to get vaccinated has outstripped supply of the drugs, and when vaccine appointments are released, they’re quickly scooped up. But jurisdictions across the country may soon face the opposite problem. As production ramps up, the US will soon have many more doses—and not enough people who want them. The change will be rapid: Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that supply and demand could shift “in the weeks to month ahead.” Walmart, a major distributor of vaccines across the country, has said that the flip could happen within a month to 45 days. In some states, the shift from scarcity to abundance is already here. In Idaho, where 20% of people have gotten at least one shot, many appointments have gone unfilled, causing state officials to increase eligibility ahead of schedule. The state plans to open up appointments to those 55 and up beginning March 22. In a March 16 media briefing, Idaho officials said they’re making appointments available to 200,000 or more people every other week. They remain hopeful that many Idahoans who’ve been hesitant about getting vaccinated will start getting in line now that the rollout is further along. Meanwhile, some Native American communities are running weeks ahead of any US state when it comes to delivering vaccines. The Chickasaw Nation, for example, has successfully vaccinated so many of its 38,000 residents that it is now offering shots to anyone 16 and older—and even to the general public in Oklahoma. This all means that America is racing toward the point at which so many people are resistant to the virus that it becomes much harder to spread. President Biden has set a goal that all states should be able to make every adult eligible for vaccination by May 1. (As for whatever may be left over, the administration plans to send millions of excess doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Canada and Mexico to fill their supply gaps.) Medical experts think we will need a vaccination rate of around 80% to reach the point where infections are dramatically reduced in the US, and projections show that 70% of Americans will be vaccinated by late June. But those projections assume that everyone who is eligible will take a vaccine. A recent Pew study estimates, however, that only 69% of Americans want a shot. That means reaching the threshold will require efforts to understand why the “maybes” are hesitant and how their minds might be changed. Understanding the hesitant Data collected by the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University could offer a road map for the coming months. In a survey of more than 1.9 million Americans, researchers found that although a rising share of people have gotten vaccinated or are willing to, around a quarter of unvaccinated adults are still hesitant. Alex Reinhart, assistant teaching professor of statistics and data science at Carnegie Mellon, hopes that research on who’s hesitant—and why—could help officials focus their efforts. For example, the Delphi team found that trust in vaccines varied geographically. In southern states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana, along with North Dakota and Wyoming, respondents were more likely to say they probably or definitely wouldn’t accept a vaccine if it were offered. The reasons also showed patterns. Side effects were a greater worry in Florida and Georgia than other states with a lot of vaccine hesitancy, which suggests that state-specific outreach campaigns could help build trust. Gender was another major factor, with women significantly more concerned about side effects than men. All these insights can be used as cities, states, and community groups think about how to persuade slower adopters. This pivot to messaging campaigns represents a major shift from the current mission, which has been focused on distributing limited amounts of vaccine as quickly as possible. Reinhart says that “months from now, when the most accepting people have already been vaccinated, it's going to be more and more important to get a message out.” Planning for a pivot Some groups are already planning creative tactics to reach those not yet vaccinated. The advocacy group 1Day Sooner is lobbying Boston to hold a “Vaccine Day” celebrating essential workers with music, parties, and other events for those who have been vaccinated, in the hope it will entice the public to get shots beforehand. In some Alaskan towns, meanwhile, people receiving vaccines are entered into sweepstakes with prizes including drums of oil, trips to Hawaii, or cash toward a new vehicle. But strategies don’t need to be elaborate. The researchers at Carnegie Mellon found that people’s regular health-care providers are consistently effective at convincing them to be vaccinated. The least effective messengers? After a year filled with misinformation, it’s perhaps not surprising that politicians sway “nearly nobody” into getting a shot. Reinhart says we should be optimistic about the findings. “We do have work to do,” he says, “but at least things are moving in the right direction.”
EU to extend vaccine export curbs to cover Britain, backloading https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-vaccines-idUSKBN2BF2BF The European Commission on Wednesday will extend EU powers to potentially block COVID-19 vaccine exports to Britain and other areas with much higher vaccination rates, and to cover instances of companies backloading contracted supplies, EU officials said. The regulation is aimed at making vaccine trade reciprocal and proportional so that other vaccine-making countries sell to Europe and the EU does not export much more than it imports, one EU official said. With no numerical targets, the change is unlikely to trigger mass export bans of EU-made vaccines, the official with insight into the announcement said on Wednesday. “I just really, really don’t see that happening because we have our international obligations and we want to keep supply chains going and the global system moving and flowing,” the official said. The regulation will be the basis for the EU’s 27 governments to decide whether to block vaccine exports or not. “In practice, all this is, is a piece of paper that says please take this stuff into consideration when you’re looking at approving export authorisations,” the official said. The move, which EU officials said could hit AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, are designed to avoid even limited delivery shortfalls to a region whose inoculation programme has been beset by delays and supply issues. Shipments abroad could also be withheld if vaccine-producing countries, such as Britain and the United States, disallow exports to the EU, officials said, confirming comments by commission head Ursula von der Leyen last week. As London-Brussels tensions rose on Monday over a possible export ban, Britain demanded that EU authorities allow the delivery of vaccines it has ordered. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain did not believe in imposing vaccine blockades. “I’m encouraged by some of the things I’ve heard from the continent in the same sense,” he told a news briefing. Johnson & Johnson has announced delays in its second-quarter supplies to the EU, which a second EU official said could lead to consequences under the Commission amendment covering companies backloading contracted quarterly deliveries. All vaccine makers could be affected, added the second official, with direct knowledge of the Commission decision. Some on the EU’s list of countries exempt from any vaccine export monitoring, like Israel, are likely to be removed, because of their very high inoculation rates, the first official said. “It doesn’t mean they won’t get vaccines. It just means they’re not automatically exempted anymore,” the first EU official said. ‘WE DON’T WANT THE SAME DELAYS IN Q2’ The EU this month used an export control mechanism, set up at the end of January, to block an AstraZeneca vaccine shipment to Australia. That mechanism can be activated only if companies do not meet contracted quarterly delivery targets. The block followed AstraZeneca’s announcement of steep cuts in first-quarter deliveries to the EU. With the amendments to be adopted on Wednesday, the EU will be able to block exports to cover companies that respect their quarterly contracts but backload supplies to the end of the period, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous. Johnson & Johnson, which has committed to delivering 55 million doses to the EU between April and June, plans to start deliveries in the second half of April. The company told EU officials production issues might make it difficult to meet its second quarter target, but it was striving to do so. Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech also had delays in vaccine deliveries to the EU, though they are set to meet their overall first-quarter targets. “We don’t want the same delays to happen in the second quarter,” said the second official.
The E.U. drafted legislation to curb exports of Covid-19 vaccines for six weeks, a move that could badly affect supply in the U.K., among other places. Tuesday, March 23, 2021 9:17 PM EST https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/...d=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=54641335 Britain is by far the biggest benefactor of E.U. exports and would stand to lose the most under the proposed rules, but they could also be applied to curb exports to other countries like Canada, the second-largest recipient of E.U.-made vaccines, as well as Israel. BRUSSELS — The European Union is finalizing emergency legislation that will give it broad powers to curb exports for the next six weeks of Covid-19 vaccines manufactured in the bloc, a sharp escalation in its response to supply shortages at home that have created a political maelstrom amid a rising third wave on the continent. The draft legislation, which is set to be made public on Wednesday, was reviewed by The New York Times and confirmed by two E.U. officials involved in the drafting process. The new rules will make it harder for pharmaceutical companies producing Covid-19 vaccines in the European Union to export them and is likely to disrupt supply to Britain. The European Union has been primarily at loggerheads with AstraZeneca since it drastically cut its supply to the bloc, citing production problems in January, and the company is the main target of the new rules. But the legislation, which could block the export of millions of doses from E.U. ports, could also affect the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Britain is by far the biggest benefactor of E.U. exports and will stand to lose the most by these rules, but they could also be applied to curb exports to other countries like Canada, for example, the second-largest recipient of E.U.-made vaccines, as well as Israel, which gets doses from the bloc but is very advanced in its vaccination campaign and therefore seen as less needy. “We are in the crisis of the century. And I’m not ruling out anything for now, because we have to make sure that Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said in comments last week that paved the way for the new rules. “Human lives, civil liberties and also the prosperity of our economy are dependent on that, on the speed of vaccination, on moving forward.” The legislation is unlikely to affect the United States, which has so far received fewer than one million doses from E.U.-based facilities. The Biden administration has said it has secured enough doses from its three authorized manufacturers — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — to cover all adults in the country by the end of May. The overwhelming bulk of that supply is coming from plants in the United States. The country also exports vaccine components to the European Union, which is reluctant to risk any disruption to the supply chain of raw materials. The European Union allowed pharmaceutical companies to fulfill their contracts by authorizing them to export more than 40 million vaccine doses to 33 countries between February and mid-March, with 10 million going to Britain and 4.3 million to Canada. The bloc has kept about 70 million at home and distributed them to its 27 member nations, but its efforts to mount mass vaccination campaigns have been set back by a number of missteps. Exporting liberally overseas when supply at home is thin has been a key part of the problem, and the bloc has come under criticism for permitting exports in the first place, when the United States and Britain practically locked up domestic production for domestic use through contracts with pharmaceutical companies. The outcome has been a troubled vaccine rollout for the world’s richest group of nations. The impact of the failures is being exacerbated by a third wave that is sending health care systems across the continent into emergency mode and ushering in painful new lockdowns. The European Commission, which ordered the vaccines, and individual governments in member states responsible for their national campaigns have come under severe criticism for their failures by voters tired of lockdowns and growing Covid-19 caseloads. Public anger and its political cost have grown as the bloc has fallen behind several rich world peers in advancing vaccination campaigns despite being home to major manufacturers. The bloc has seen recipients of vaccines produced in its member countries, as well as in other rich nations,race ahead with their inoculation campaigns. Nearly 60 percent of Israelis have received at least one vaccine dose, 40 percent of Britons and a quarter of Americans, but only 10 percent of E.U. citizens have been inoculated, according to the latest information published by Our World in Data. The export curbs are being pushed through by the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, and while changes to the new rules could still take place before the law is finalized, officials said it was unlikely they would be substantive. They are expected to be put into force swiftly. E.U. officials said the rules would allow a degree of discretion, meaning they won’t result in a blanket ban on exports, and the officials still expected many exports to continue. “The proposed measures are concerning,” said Youmy Han, the spokeswoman for Canada’s minister of international trade, Mary Ng. “Minister Ng’s counterparts have repeatedly assured her that these measures will not affect vaccine shipments to Canada,” Ms. Han said. She added, “We will continue to work with the E.U. and its member states, as we have done throughout the pandemic, to ensure that our essential health and medical supply chains remain open and resilient.” Canada depends on the European Union for nearly its entire vaccine supply: All of Canada’s Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have come from Europe, though the country received a small shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India. The new rules come after months of escalating tensions between the European Union and AstraZeneca, in a situation that has become toxic for the bloc’s fragile relations with its recently departed member, Britain. The trouble began in late January, when AstraZeneca told the bloc it would cut its deliveries by more than half in the first quarter of 2021, upending vaccine rollout plans. In response, the European Union put in place an export-authorization process, requiring pharmaceutical companies to seek permission to export vaccines and giving the European Union the powers to block them if they were seen as running counter to a company’s contractual obligations to the bloc. Since Feb. 1, the European Union blocked only one out of more than 300 exports, a small shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines to Australia, on the grounds that the country was nearly Covid-free while the bloc was struggling with rising infections. The new rules will introduce more grounds to block exports, the draft documents show. They will encourage blocking shipments to countries that do not export vaccines to the European Union — a clause clearly targeting Britain — or to countries that have “a higher vaccination rate” than the European Union “or where the current epidemiological situation is less serious” than in the bloc, according to the wording seen by The Times. In recent days, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain has sought to strike a conciliatory tone in a bid to avert an E.U. export ban that would deliver a major blow to his country’s fast-advancing vaccination campaign. At a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Johnson said he was opposed to blockades, and was “encouraged by some of the things I’ve heard from the continent.” The British news media reported that his government would be prepared to let the bloc have four million AstraZeneca doses produced at an E.U.-based factory.
Summary: Italian police seize 29M AstraZeneca vaccines in a warehouse. At least 13M doses were designated to be shipped overseas. Italy is taking all the doses and using them in the EU. Authorities find 29 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in Italian facility https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...llion-doses-of-astrazeneca-vaccine-in-italian Authorities discovered 29 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in a facility in Italy on Wednesday, prompting some further tension between the European Union and the company amid the bloc’s attempts to restrict vaccine exports. EU officials told The New York Times that Italian authorities uncovered the stash of doses during a visit to a site near Rome that is being used to produce AstraZeneca vaccines for the 27-nation bloc. The Italian daily La Stampa first reported on the stockpile. Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi said some of the batches, which can have 1 million doses each, were taken and two batches were sent to Belgium, Reuters reported. The European Commission had informed the Italian authorities that there was an inconsistency in data between the number of doses AstraZeneca said it was developing in the EU and the amount that the production facilities were reporting. The Times reported that the discovery sparked concerns among EU officials that AstraZeneca was attempting to export the doses abroad despite the EU’s restrictions to prevent the company from doing so until it provides the promised doses for the bloc. The EU has said it has received 16.6 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses for the first quarter of the year despite ordering more than 100 million doses. But in the meantime, AstraZeneca has been on time with its deliveries to Britain. EU officials told the Times there was no evidence the discovered stash was designated for Britain, and the company dismisses allegations that it violated the EU’s contract. AstraZeneca reported in a statement obtained by Reuters that 16 million doses found in the facility were for the bloc and 13 million were for countries in the COVAX program, which was designed to get doses to poorer nations. “There are no exports currently planned other than to COVAX countries," AstraZeneca said. AstraZeneca did not immediately return The Hill’s request for comment. On Wednesday, the EU expanded its rules against vaccine exports out of concerns AstraZeneca will not fulfill the bloc’s second quarter order as well, according to the Times. Countries under the COVAX initiative are exempt from the export regulations. AstraZeneca has faced other problems in recent weeks as several countries, most of which are in Europe, have suspended administering the company’s vaccine out of concern that the vaccine is connected to cases of blood clots. But the European Medicines Agency has said the AstraZeneca vaccine remains safe and effective.
'Total disgrace': EU blasted for allowing Italy to block AstraZeneca shipment to Australia https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/to...ment-to-australia/V2ELPT7V2N2TW4LDBOASMAQJKU/
Ugly. Particularly since the EU built its reputation and raison d'etre on the premise that we must find ways to rise above the pitfalls of nationalism. In the end, the country that was accused first and foremost of being on the road to ugly vaccine nationalism will end out supplying the rest of the world which is that country's proper and traditional role. That country shall remain un-named today.