Cable Forum - Coronavirus

The AZ contractors in the EU are not performing well with three out of four contractors named in the contract not yet delivering. This is the crux of the issue.

I would have thought the question should be "Are the contractors producing and supplies being held up by red tape"?

1andrew1

13-03-2021 20:47

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by pip08456 (Post 36074161)

I would have thought the question should be "Are the contractors producing and supplies being held up by red tape"?

They've not requested approval so that's not the case. It needs to be approved asap once the details are submitted.

---------- Post added at 20:47 ---------- Previous post was at 20:44 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36074160)

The Commission slipped up big time by not squaring the circle at the time of contract signature. Fancy not knowing that EU production could not take place!

I'm sure every contract signed had a degree of risk that there might be manufacturing issues but to say they knew that EU production could not place is incorrect.

Sephiroth

13-03-2021 20:54

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36074163)

<SNIP>

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I'm sure every contract signed had a degree of risk that there might be manufacturing issues but to say they knew that EU production could not place is incorrect.

You're coming across again as the defender of the EU.
You really should give up this tack.

Anyway, you're choosing not to understand what I said. If the EC had been doing its job properly, that risk would have been foreseen (as the facilities had not been licensed) and mitigated. It's one of the biggest fups ever seen in recent times.

Papa has it right - there is a weight of death that hangs on the EU's shoulders.

1andrew1

13-03-2021 21:27

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36074165)

I'm afraid you're looking at the situation and saying "How can I make this fit what the Telegraph leader writers would say" as oppose to looking at the evidence and thinking drawing a logical facts-based conclusion.

No facilities anywhere had been approved when the contract was signed for the manufacture of the AstraZeneca vaccine. It appears you would have preferred that the UK and EU wait several months until the factories were licensed and then sign the contracts? Sorry to disagree but that's ridiculous given the nature of the challenge we face.

Sephiroth

13-03-2021 21:47

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36074167)

Quote:

No facilities anywhere had been approved when the contract was signed for the manufacture of the AstraZeneca vaccine. It appears you would have preferred that the UK and EU wait several months until the factories were licensed and then sign the contracts? Sorry to disagree but that's ridiculous given the nature of the challenge we face.

Well, exactly. By any project management risk assessment standards, that would have been very high on probability and very high on negative effect. By all means sign the contract but mitigate the risks, which they didn't do. Political considerations would have ruled out the Russian/Chines vaccines and surely/maybe the Germans could have done something about Pfizer.

How can you be so far off the mark?

And stop coming across as the EC's spokesman on the forum. Credibility is surely everything.

1andrew1

13-03-2021 22:13

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36074170)

What utter rubbish, Andrew. That's not on my mind at all.
Indeed, the quotes that got me going were from the Times and FT.
Unless you don't believe what those papers are reporting, there is no flaw in the conclusion I have reached.

Well, exactly. By any project management risk assessment standards, that would have been very high on probability and very high on negative effect. By all means sign the contract but mitigate the risks, which they didn't do. Political considerations would have ruled out the Russian/Chines vaccines and surely/maybe the Germans could have done something about Pfizer.

How can you be so far off the mark?

And stop coming across as the EC's spokesman on the forum. Credibility is surely everything.

The EU and UK signed up pretty much for the same vaccines including the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine as well as the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. I've posted who ordered what previously.

Supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have not been as promised. Originally, AstraZeneca was due to supply 100m shots to the EU by the end of March. The company then said it could only supply 40m shots in this timescale due to production issues. It now looks like it won't achieve this and will only be able to supply 30m shots by the end of the month.

Sephiroth

13-03-2021 22:29

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36074172)

You're dodging the point I made. Not surprising, really - because I'm right but you can't bring yourself to agree that the EC fupped big time.

The EC did not do its job properly; it did not properly assess the and thus did couldn't mitigate them.

Those idiots then went on the warpath, flinging accusations on everyone but themselves. We're vaccinating and they are hardly vaccinating. Speaks for itself while you're sticking up for those idiots.

1andrew1

13-03-2021 22:46

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36074174)

I'm sticking up for the facts as you swerve the issue like Anthony Watson swerved the French today. :D

No factories were approved to manufacture the vaccine at the time that the UK and EU signed contracts with AstraZeneca. Both the UK and EU took a similar portfolio approach. AstraZeneca's UK contractor delivered. Astra-Zeneca's EU contractors have collectively under-delivered.

If you want to retrench to arguing that the EU was generally later in placing orders than the UK then I would agree with you. But that's not the issue under discussion on this occasion.

Chris

13-03-2021 22:57

Re: Coronavirus

The lateness of the EU’s commitment to signing contracts is of material interest though, because it means all the production facilities set up to fulfil EU orders are months behind those in the UK at getting set up and learning how to maximise yield. Clearly that’s not the only problem they’re having but it hasn’t helped. At the Dutch plant in question there may simply be a lack of experience in the necessary techniques required to get the bio-reactors to their optimum performance. We know that the industrial-scale process AstraZeneca developed from the Oxford “recipe” works because we have two locations in the UK churning it out in large quantities.

1andrew1

13-03-2021 23:17

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36074178)

Timeliness is not in dispute, I reiterate that I agree on this point.

Seph was arguing that the EU had been at fault by:
1) Signing a contract when it knew it could not be fufilled.
2) Not mitigating the risks by signing contracts with other suppliers like Pfizer.

Both of these statements are wrong.

Sephiroth

13-03-2021 23:25

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36074179)

hat's not what I said. I actually said:

Quote:

And I'll amplify what I've maintained throughout this exchange about signing a contract when they knew it couldn't be fulfilled. The EC didn't do its due diligence on the means of production. Consequently, thousands more are dying than is the proportionate case here.

How you can sit and type the defensive stuff you're doing is beyond sensibility when the whole fiasco is staring us in our faces.

pip08456

13-03-2021 23:48

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36074163)

They've not requested approval so that's not the case. It needs to be approved asap once the details are submitted.[COLOR="Silver"]

Not what I asked. Has the vaccine been produced?

Sephiroth

13-03-2021 23:57

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by pip08456 (Post 36074181)

Not what I asked. Has the vaccine been produced?

Andrew's so disingenuous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1
They've not requested approval so that's not the case. It needs to be approved asap once the details are submitted.

The EC did not tie up that loose end. 3½ months into our vaccination programme, the production facilities upon which the EU is pinning its hopes have not been licensed - never mind they haven't applied. The EC should have been all over that.

1andrew1

14-03-2021 00:18

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36074180)

hat's not what I said. I actually said:

And I'll amplify what I've maintained throughout this exchange about signing a contract when they knew it couldn't be fulfilled. The EC didn't do its due diligence on the means of production. Consequently, thousands more are dying than is the proportionate case here.

How you can sit and type the defensive stuff you're doing is beyond sensibility when the whole fiasco is staring us in our faces.

Neither the UK nor EU could have known how the production could have turned out at each plant when the contracts were signed with AstraZeneca. I doubt anyone in AstraZeneca or the factories could have known either.

It was a high-risk, high-reward game. Risk by both the UK and EU was mitigated by multiple vaccine suppliers (which you've so far failed to acknowledge as it doesn't fit your zero-risk-mitigation narrative) and multiple production plants.

The above does not undernine the fact that the EU was less agile than the UK in its procurement process.

---------- Post added at 00:15 ---------- Previous post was at 00:05 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36074182)

I agree that they should have been all over that, although we don't know to what extent they were or they weren't over that. But that tangential point does not make your case that they knew the contract could not be fufilled. Only Captain Hindsight would know.

And you've yet to acknowledge that your point about no risk mitigation was similarly invalid.

---------- Post added at 00:18 ---------- Previous post was at 00:15 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by pip08456 (Post 36074181)

Not what I asked. Has the vaccine been produced?

That's a different question, no idea, sorry.

papa smurf

14-03-2021 07:40

Re: Coronavirus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36074180)

hat's not what I said. I actually said:

And I'll amplify what I've maintained throughout this exchange about signing a contract when they knew it couldn't be fulfilled. The EC didn't do its due diligence on the means of production. Consequently, thousands more are dying than is the proportionate case here.

How you can sit and type the defensive stuff you're doing is beyond sensibility when the whole fiasco is staring us in our faces.

All he can hear is this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bx5ZsR8P48

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