Quote:
Originally Posted by jonbxx
I liked the old days when drugs were approved based on being safe and effective. According the The Express, how much you can annoy other countries seems to be a factor too now.
AZ isn’t a solely British company BTW, it’s joint British and Swedish company
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Indeed, however it is headquartered in the UK, and is substantially manufacturing in the UK a vaccine designed by a UK university with support from the UK government. It has become a symbol of British success in the campaign to vaccinate against Covid-19, right at the time the EU and its member states are presiding over a directly comparable failure.
It is cheap symbolism because there won’t be enough AstraZeneca vaccine available to European countries until after its efficacy in older patients is confirmed anyway, so it’s not as if they had the choice. It is also short-term political opportunism because they need something to take the shine off the British vaccination programme that’s showing them up so badly.
I agree it is a real pity the EU and its members have behaved so appallingly over the last couple of weeks. What conclusions we might draw from it all are for another thread. All we really need to keep reminding ourselves is that this is all their own nonsensical business. We are in the lead here and shouldn’t concern ourselves with the bizarre peacock strutting of those who are trying far too hard to prove they’re the ones in control.
(Edit) and I think the Express is being rather narcissistic about this - this is political theatre for domestic consumption by the electorates presently being let down by their national governments’ ongoing participation in a failed EU venture. It isn’t intended as a cross-channel middle finger (not primarily at least ... whether they hope for that as a bonus outcome is neither here nor there. We’re the ones vaccinating more than half a million people every day).