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Originally Posted by Chris
Indeed. However Mr K has made his drive-by EU butt-kissing post of the day and has now cleared off. It’s unlikely he’s going to return to acknowledge his error.
The interesting thing about Germany here isn’t just that they failed to secure early backing for the RNA vaccine part-developed by a German company (BioNTech), but now the EU has bought in to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine Germany is getting the lion’s share of the first delivery. It strikes me as a strange definition of “acting together” given that Germany’s Covid transmission rate is and always has been far lower than many other places. A cynic might say that the EU’s much trumpeted joint approach is a fig leaf covering the unedifying (but entirely understandable) spectacle of member states looking after their own interests in an area where there isn’t actually any EU competency, but because it’s a crisis they feel like they should be seen to be Doing Something.
Germany is more or less getting what it has paid for, with lip service paid to pooling and sharing resources and precious little evidence of the vaccine going exactly where it’s needed.
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Does that not make it the best place to deploy a vaccine? If most of the population are still susceptible.
I'd also expect Germany to be better placed to immediately distribute massive numbers of a vaccine that requires such cold storage throughout it's distribution chains. Scattering it round the continent is going to be a logistical challenge that I'd imagine is undesirable and perhaps unnecessary is other vaccines are in the pipeline that don't have the same issues.
I agree with you on the UK vs EU part of this though - pointless as you say everyone is gambling to a greater or lesser degree on big names and smaller companies.
---------- Post added at 20:58 ---------- Previous post was at 20:57 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
What interests me most here is the EU’s internal politics. Who pays for the vaccine and who gets it first? From what I’ve read so far, it isn’t likely to be down to plain and simple pooling and sharing.
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I do agree it's interesting, and I'm not saying you are wrong just playing devil's advocate slightly. Everyone is going to have to make judgement calls on where the vaccine goes first.
On the per unit cost point I'm inclined to agree that even where it arises it's going to be so small compared to the economic impact of Covid. Even $20 (going high deliberately) for 45 million people (rough population immunity threshold). It's nothing.