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That's certainly a strong argument for the developed nations taking more control of vaccination programmes through UN/other bodies.

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Well said, and spot on.:clap:

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But not in crowds outside - close proximity for a longer period of time to lots of people increases the risk; it’s completely different from passing someone in the street.

In previous years we didn’t have a world-wide pandemic (except for last year), and the BLM protestors were equally in the wrong.

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Selective memories?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-protests.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-matt-hancock

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Well, it's certainly against the rules, but we need to get it into perspective. There were no spikes in the virus after the furore about those crowded beaches. It's indoor environments that really carry the risk. People keep forgetting that.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-...mpossible.html

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I have the same opinion about all yobs and hooligans. :)

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Even your own fans?

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Here we go with the scaremongering campaign. :rolleyes:

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His glass is always empty.

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It's just quicker and cheaper than the Royal Mail. Nothing to be worried about unless you're a postie.

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Medical professional covering his arse . . .

Cases begin to rise again July time, 'new' variants found, lock down mumbled about by advisors in September, medium lock down starts October, full lock down by November with hospitals struggling again. Merry Christmas :D

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You're not wrong sir, what I don't get is with all the millions of people vaccinated why the hell do they still go on about the virus wreaking havoc and taking off again, I thought the vaccines were supposed to protect us from this, so why the constant calls for staying at home and be bored to death or we'll just fine you, absolute bullshit.

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We aren’t going to have the entire adult population vaccinated twice until the autumn. Until we get there, there will be unvaccinated people capable of transmitting the virus. Even once we are vaccinated there will be some vaccinated people who can still carry it and some people who can still get sick. Also every person who carries the virus is an environment where it can multiply and mutate. Mutations have the potential to escape the vaccine and put us back at square one. So scientifically the ideal solution is to minimise opportunities for transmission for as long as possible. But the present plans allow a large number of unvaccinated people to start mixing. That’s the risk.

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Especially my own fans.

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We have a program, we have milestones and dates. It's not as fast as some would like, some would say it's glacial.

I can understand the reasoning behind the 5 week intervals, we should just stick with the plan, and we should all be out if it in June. 3 and a bit months and a normal summer awaits.

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Does science work differently in Scotland?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56337475

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Yes, it's definitely not political......:rolleyes:

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Who the heck produces those . . and is export/import duty payable by the purchaser, the producer, or the delivery firm?

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The duty is payable in the future (well, one of the futures...)

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They were talking about the possibility of vaccination passports on our local news programme earlier. One legal bod says it's a very interesting area as it goes against the European Court of Human Rights 'right to a private family life' ruling:

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/...e%20activities.

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Yes, I read that too. You're in Leeds aren't you? It might be on again in the bulletin after the 10pm news.

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Wondering why Corporation Tax is set to soar?
https://www.ft.com/content/9948d23a-...7-f97c9f8eb956

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Meanwhile, the perfidious EU attempts to distract from its vaccine nationalism re Italy & Australia, by circulating baseless claims that the UK is the one actually banning vaccine exports:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56339188

I was going to say You Couldn’t Make It Up, but clearly, if you’re the EU, you can.

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I'm quite surprised that we haven't stopped exports of COVID vaccine to be honest. We have a big old list of drugs that can't be exported (see here) including vaccines for Hepatitis B, Pneumococcus and Influenza but not COVID.

I'm guessing reciprocal export bans including the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would happen which wouldn't be ideal.

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How many Covid vaccines have we exported?

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When the emergency is over there are going to be some high profile scientists put back in the lab and not on TV any more.

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Good.

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Some should never have been let out with their wild, doom laden speculations.

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They should never let Graphman out again.

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Not sure what the relevance of that is?

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It'll be something to do with defending the EU;)

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That's the first jab for me, back in 10 weeks.

I walked into an empty waiting room. A nurse called for 3 male muslim patients (obvious names). They were not present, so she called my name. In, coat off, 3 questions, jab, given my card with the date for the second jab. And out in under 3 minutes.

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On the subject of World-Beating Test & Trace...

On Monday, the COVID Symptom Study app asked me to get a test. So I booked myself in online. I chose a walk-in test centre in a car park in town. They emailed me the address, so I put the postcode in the car sat-nav and off I went. I arrived to find an empty car park. Hmm....

So I put the postcode into Google Maps on my phone. It drove me round the block and back to the same empty car park. I was just about to give up and go home, when I thought I'd try entering the full address instead. Turns out they'd sent me the wrong postcode.

I guess there are more ways to beat the world than "World's Best".

The test was negative, by the way.

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Do car parks even have post codes? I suspect you just ended up with someone's best guess.

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This whole Covid thing seems to often hinge on 'someone's best guess' ;)

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They are both car parks for commercial premises, so yes they do have postcodes. They are only about a quarter of a mile apart, but on different roads.

"Someone's best guess" isn't really good enough when lives are at stake. I wonder how many people have been unable to find it. (I have reported the error to them, BTW)

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which they turn into a silly graph designed to frighten people into submission.

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It works.

Every day when out walking people purposely avoid passing by me (and each other) by crossing the road. The paranoia is ridiculous.

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It's pointless taking an unneccesary risk, however small. I'll be doing the same.

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But which is riskier - crossing the road or walking past Paul? :shrug:

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Perhaps they're being polite, trying to avoid infecting you in case they were asymptomatic?

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We'll put that on your gravestone when you get run over, which is far more likely to happen.

---------- Post added at 01:42 ---------- Previous post was at 01:41 ----------

Yeah, right. I'm sure thats the most likely reason :sleep:

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That will be me then. I've a OH with lung cancer (hopefully in remission still) and I have to care on his behalf as he and I only have had one jab thus far.

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BREAKING: Reports of Blood Clots forming in vaccinated people prompts European Medicines Agency to launch an investigation into the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...ccine-12242530

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The problem with trying to draw conclusions from such small amount cases v large sample size, is you can quite easily come to the conclusion that the AZ vaccine is causing more people to be hit and killed by cars.

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Statistical analysis would also show that around 99% of those vaccinated haven't attended a football match or been to the cinema since. ;)

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Exactly because they are vaccinating so many, there are going to be apparent correlations between the vaccine and all sorts of things. I would venture to suggest the 11 million Oxford-AstraZeneca dozes given in the UK testify to its safety.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-5...ost_type=share

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EU closes ranks over Covid surge and vaccine delays

Europeans, like many others across the world, hoped for a better and happier year in 2021 - after seemingly endless months of Covid illness, deaths and pandemic-linked economic misery.

But so far, so annus horribilis for the EU. On a number of Covid fronts.

The bloc's by now infamous vaccination procurement scheme - trumpeting the securing of up to 2.6 billion doses - has so far failed to deliver. EU countries lag significantly behind Israel, the UK and the US in getting jabs into arms.

A number of EU members have stumbled nationally, too, with heavily criticised roll-outs of the vaccines they did manage to obtain, in Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria and beyond.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56361840

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Now getting my 1st dose of vaccine on Wednesday at my GPs, rather than being stuck with a 32 mile round trip to the mass vac centre next Friday.

Son is also getting his 1st vaccine dose on Wednesday (at risk group).

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i...721a56fe55f3db

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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.

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The biggest cause of death in the EU will be
bureaucracy at this rate.

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

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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 ----------

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Re: Coronavirus
 

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.

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Not what I asked. Has the vaccine been produced?

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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 ----------

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 ----------

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

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

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I'm discussing this around facts, not on politics. If you wish to steer it in the latter direction that's your choice but if you're confident about your assertions then I question the need to do so.

I'm familiar with risk mitigation and I've explained how the EU and UK have similarly achieved this to the extent that it was possible - multiple suppliers and multiple plants. I'm not sure what I can do further here.

Only Captain Hindsight could have forseen that a reputable multinational company could not fufill its contracts so badly. That's a risk that anyone signing a contract with AstraZeneca and indeed the other manufacturers took.

I'll repeat again that I accept the EU procurement plan was not as agile as the UK's and I've never argued otherwise. But that does not take away from the fact that your assertions which I understand to be:
- The EU knew that when it signed the AstraZeneca contract that it could not be fufilled
- The EU did not mitigate the risks
I view as being factually incorrect.

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There was always going to be a risk in this vaccine project as it uses contract manufacturers such as Halix (as well as others such as Oxford Biomedica and Cobra) Normally, a drug products manufacturing process uses a set suite of equipment. If demand increases, the drug companies are more likely to replicate their factory rather than replacing with a bigger one as it is much, much easier to copy a production process exactly than start messing with things.

This situation is different - each factory will have different equipment. The 'Tech Transfer' process has to take notice of this. If the production process is robust, it will tend to forgive small changes in equipment and processes but I get the impression that the AZ vaccine production process is not really there, it seems finicky. In all honesty, it wouldn't have made it to market in normal times due to this lack of production robustness.

From a regulatory point of view, AZ need to prove that the vaccine produced at a site (in this case Halix) is the same as the one submitted for approval. If the analysis results during production and the final product is different from what was submitted for approval, it is not the same drug and will not be approved. The stage Halix (and Novasep) are at is trying to get to the stage of churning out vaccine that matches the approved product. They can't submit for approval by the EMA until this happens.

Lack of understanding of the production and being in a hurry has led us to where we are now - 'Tech Transfer hell'

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I do have to agree that the EU dropped the ball. If they knew that the suppliers needed to make applications and hadn't they should have reminded the companies to get all their ducks in order. Just sitting back and then saying that it's up to the company (if that's what happened) really isn't an acceptable situation.

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As jonbxx has outined, all Covid 19 manufacturers need to apply to the relevant authority to be licensed but this can only be done once the vaccine is being produced. It's not something the manufacturers need reminding about nor is it something that can be done until the factory is producing the vaccine in question. Which no factory was doing when the contracts were signed.

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The whole politicisation of the tragic murder of Sarah Everard and subsequent demonising of all men and boys is less about female safety and a worrying furthering of identity politics.

Probably needs its own thread.

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Chaos and ineptitude. The hall mark of the EU.

While they agonise over a few blood clot cases no larger than the normal un-jabbed population their unprotected citizens are dying while AZ vaccine lies unused in freezers.

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The and EC and EMA wouldn't have knowledge of how easy or hard the tech transfer would be, they would work on information from the manufacturer. Some tech transfers are easy, some are not. I have seen issues where exactly the same equipment and chemicals are used at two sites and the results are different. Unexpected quirks pop up all the time but these are usually ironed out behind closed doors.

If AZ promised the tech transfer done by a certain time and manufacturing to start, to an extent, their word is taken on it as they would be the experts in their manufacturing process. Even the EMA would only be looking at how the production at site x, y or z is done in terms of quality and safety, not if it works at all.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Seems rather strange then, that this story appeared on Friday: :D

France reopens borders for UK tourists to take holidays without need for Covid vaccination
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-12/...id-vaccination

reminds me of that chant 'you don't know what you're doing' ;)

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It's a serious political failure amongst some of the most influential national leaders in the EU, worst of all Macron himself in France. They were so busy traducing the AstraZeneca vaccine in retaliation for being told they couldn't have as much of it as they wanted, they have caused public scepticism and arguably now enabled regulatory over-caution in the face of 'evidence' that might - just might - justify briefly pausing use of a medicine in normal times, in the absence of a massive, readily available data set to compare their domestic experience with.

Of course in the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine there is data from something like 12 million people and counting that says there's no evidence of a causal link with blood clots, plus a deliberate study of its safety in Finland that likewise determines it is as safe as the UK's MHRA, the EMA and WHO have said all along. The medicines regulators all over Europe are fiddling while Rome burns, and later this year they'll all be locked down again while we're increasingly getting back to normal. Their desire for self-flagellation is bizarre.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Of course, that all depends on how well we keep on top of things. I'm not advocating a total lock down of our ports/airports, but we need to be very careful of who arrives from where and ensure they're clear, with double/triple checked details.

We've already seen an example recently of how one person slipped through the net and caused 'mild' panic :D

Re: Coronavirus
 

The issue is that often, you don't know how hard or easy the tech transfer will be until you do it. When the contracts were signed off in mid August, the manufacturing process was still in development. Even going from lab scale to large scale at one manufacturing site is fraught with issues. This process has gone from Oxford Uni to AZ development to Cobra and Oxford Biomedica to pin down the production method. Cobra and Oxford Biomedica had the freedom to tinker about with the production to get it going well. Halix, Novasep, CSL, etc. don't have such a luxury.

There was a lot of risk signing off the contract in August and the contract acknowledges that risk. Hell, there was no idea if the vaccine would even work at that point!

It is known what step is causing the problems. How to fix it is the struggle and that is down to AZ, the manufacture and the supplier of the manufacturer to sort

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But in a contract of this sort, it would have been "best endeavours", due to all the unknowns - the EU can’t manage the contract between AZ and Halix.

There could be no reasonable mitigation, as the only mitigation would be to build another production line, which could have exactly the same issues...