Generic Virus Thread

[trekka]

8 hours ago, Mic09 said:

Here is a long read but worth it.

Here is the link:

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-struggle-pfizer-biontech-astrazeneca/

That was an interesting read this morning whilst sipping my coffee.  Thanks. 

[magnkarl]

In fairness to both the EU and the UK, the production of these vaccines should surely become freely available for anyone who can produce it safely. The EU should fork out whatever fee required to pay for the recipe, and get Bayer and the other big companies across the EU capable of producing it, to start doing so. The only ones who profit from this mess is AZ, Pfizer, Moderna etc. They're hiding behind the noise coming out of countries who are being undersold. At this rate only the rich countries of the world will get the vaccine this year, the rest will be waiting for AZ\Pfizer to have anything left for them to buy. 

It's turning into what we saw with Polio, AIDS etc in the 1900's.

[snowychap]

39 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

It isn’t for once a spat between the UK and the EU, that suggests the UK is in someway responsible when it clearly isn’t.

I think it stretches plausibility to think that there has been no input from the UK government in to decision making about supply by AZ.

Whatever the initial starting point for the issues (and I'll repeat the point that I view all of this in much wider terms than any one nation or group of nations versus any manufacturer/other nation/other group of nations), it has become much more than that initial problem because we're all interconnected - as people, as areas, as nations, as groups of nations, &c.

Problems that may start out very locally have a propensity (indeed, are almost certain) in an interconnected world such as ours to affect a much wider group than might initially be the case. Addressing global issues locally without a good overarching collective direction is probably not the best way of responding to these kinds of crises. Perhaps, even, these local responses create the kinds of tensions that bleed in to other areas and become long-term sores requiring lots of unnecessary diplomatic effort to resolve or come back to bite people on the arse or, worse still, lead to conflict.

[magnkarl]

It should also be said that it's in the big pharma's interest to keep corona around for longer so it mutates faster. A slow trickle of 'new' vaccines for new strains will guarantee extreme profit for years to come.

[snowychap]

On a separate note, this kind of thing doesn't really help:

Quote

Sir Tom Jones has said he feels "bulletproof" after receiving both doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

The Pontypridd-born singer, 80, first revealed he had his first jab before performing on Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny, broadcast on New Year's Eve.

Now the singer has said "it's a great feeling" to be fully vaccinated.

He told The Graham Norton Show: "I've had the two and I'm now bulletproof!"

Surely that runs against the message(s) being run alongside the vaccination programme about not letting one's guard down, continuing to follow measures, &c.?

Yes, it's just Tom Jones but it is on the front page of the BBC's website.

[TrentVilla]

12 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I think it stretches plausibility to think that there has been no input from the UK government in to decision making about supply by AZ.

Whatever the initial starting point for the issues (and I'll repeat the point that I view all of this in much wider terms than any one nation or group of nations versus any manufacturer/other nation/other group of nations), it has become much more than that initial problem because we're all interconnected - as people, as areas, as nations, as groups of nations, &c.

Problems that may start out very locally have a propensity (indeed, are almost certain) in an interconnected world such as ours to affect a much wider group than might initially be the case. Addressing global issues locally without a good overarching collective direction is probably not the best way of responding to these kinds of crises. Perhaps, even, these local responses create the kinds of tensions that bleed in to other areas and become long-term sores requiring lots of unnecessary diplomatic effort to resolve or come back to bite people on the arse or, worse still, lead to conflict.

There may pr may not have been UK input, fact remains it is at the heart of the matter a dispute between the EU and AZ not the UK and the EU. The EU have in the last 24 hours come close to creating one with the UK though.

[Awol]

7 minutes ago, snowychap said:

On a separate note, this kind of thing doesn't really help:

Surely that runs against the message(s) being run alongside the vaccination programme about not letting one's guard down, continuing to follow measures, &c.?

Yes, it's just Tom Jones but it is on the front page of the BBC's website.

Trying to combat the disinformation campaign against AZ by French and German politicians, reassuring folks in the UK that it will protect granny - and here’s Tom Jones to prove it. 

[blandy]

9 hours ago, Awol said:

Good news: the big bad, will eat us for breakfast EU, seems to be backing down

It’s a minor point, but to me firstly it’s not really “the EU” it’s a few bureaucrats from the European Commission, and secondly that these appointees appear to be **** useless at their jobs. The parallel is that (say) Gavin Williamson, Priti Patel and Chris Grayling are not “the UK” they’re just incompetent numpties in roles.

The actual EU has been ineffective in terms of vaccine approval and procurement, but it’s the individual numpties who’ve caused the political damage in the last 24 hours.

[snowychap]

2 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

There may pr may not have been UK input, fact remains it is at the heart of the matter a dispute between the EU and AZ not the UK and the EU. The EU have in the last 24 hours come close to creating one with the UK though.

I reiterate that I think this is massively missing the fundamental point but we're going round in circles, here, TV.

[snowychap]

3 minutes ago, Awol said:

Trying to combat the disinformation campaign against AZ by French and German politicians, reassuring folks in the UK that it will protect granny - and here’s Tom Jones to prove it. 

Not sure if...

[TrentVilla]

Just now, snowychap said:

I reiterate that I think this is massively missing the fundamental point but we're going round in circles, here, TV.

No, I’m not. Just pointing out that describing it as a UK dispute with the EU is inaccurate. Because it is inaccurate.

[chrisp65]

Some people just love to pitch everything as us against them, divide, combat, fight, win, the other side are baddies. Our incompetent politicians are better than their incompetent Eurocrats.

It’s tiresome, we’ve gone back a hundred years.

It’s a **** vaccine to stop people dying.

[snowychap]

37 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

No, I’m not. Just pointing out that describing it as a UK dispute with the EU is inaccurate. Because it is inaccurate.

We're in a Clinton, 'it depends on what the meaning of the word [it] is' situation here.

I didn't describe 'it' as a UK dispute with the EU, I spoke about the conversation about a spat between the UK and the EU, i.e. the thing that went beyond the original catalytic event.

The poster to whom I responded had said:

Quote

the EU out of nowhere started highly emotive and inflammatory actions which were very clearly politically motivated to apply pressure on The UK and drug companies

thus elevating it from the narrow specific dispute that the EU may have had with AZ to something wider involving 'The UK'.

The EU had invoked and then rovoked Article 16 of the Protocol on NI which is part of the WA, a treaty between the UK and EU to which AZ is no sort of party thus, at least temporarily (and probably not just), meaning that it had long since ceased to be just a spat between the EU and AZ.

Plenty of people on here and elsewhere have responded to the spat making it more than simply an issue between the EU and a pharmaceutical company and therein lies a wider problem.

 

Edited January 30, 2021 by snowychap

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

10 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Some people just love to pitch everything as us against them, divide, combat, fight, win, the other side are baddies.

It's probably a great time for someone to stick their head up and ask how we can help each other out as oppose to the last week.

Would send a great message and align again on what is important and that is the people and the hospitals,  no matter where they are.

VDL & Boris,  just call each other and meet half way.  Not what you wont do but what you can.

Argue about anything in the universe apart from Vaccines FFS.  Not a great look and historically it will look pathetic.

 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

On a separate note, this kind of thing doesn't really help:

Surely that runs against the message(s) being run alongside the vaccination programme about not letting one's guard down, continuing to follow measures, &c.?

Yes, it's just Tom Jones but it is on the front page of the BBC's website.

It's not unusual for the BBC to quote Tom Jones. 

[trekka]

3 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It's not unusual for the BBC to quote Tom Jones. 

[darrenm]

Does no-one else think we probably should give the EU some of the UK produced Oxford vaccines as humanitarian aid?

Perhaps 10% of our supply to the EU until they can catch up and then we'll have 10% back if we need them?

Do borders and nationalism really matter against a pandemic which doesn't discriminate?

[TrentVilla]

7 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Does no-one else think we probably should give the EU some of the UK produced Oxford vaccines as humanitarian aid?

Perhaps 10% of our supply to the EU until they can catch up and then we'll have 10% back if we need them?

Do borders and nationalism really matter against a pandemic which doesn't discriminate?

As harsh as it sounds no, it isn’t like we have excess. That decision would cost UK lives through COVID and the wider issues of lockdown, depression, suicide and the delays in treatment of other conditions like cancer.

The Governments primary responsibility is to its citizens, the EU’s is to theirs and in reverse I wouldn’t expect them to do so and neither do I think they would do so.

It isn’t about them and us or nationalism, I just don’t think the UK Government can sacrifice lives of its population in order to assist others.

I know that is harsh and will have a human cost in the EU but giving away vaccine will do the same so it isn’t a life saving decision.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

In fairness to both the EU and the UK, the production of these vaccines should surely become freely available for anyone who can produce it safely. The EU should fork out whatever fee required to pay for the recipe, and get Bayer and the other big companies across the EU capable of producing it, to start doing so. The only ones who profit from this mess is AZ, Pfizer, Moderna etc. They're hiding behind the noise coming out of countries who are being undersold. At this rate only the rich countries of the world will get the vaccine this year, the rest will be waiting for AZ\Pfizer to have anything left for them to buy. 

It's turning into what we saw with Polio, AIDS etc in the 1900's.

There's a powerful moral case for the second half of the bolded sentence, but that would negate the first half. Because the UK and EU are preventing that exact outcome:

Backers of IP waiver for COVID-19 drugs make fresh push at WTO

'South Africa and India argued in favour of a waiver of intellectual property rights on COVID-19 drugs and vaccines at a closed-door meeting of the World Trade Organization on Tuesday but opponents showed little sign of budging, trade sources said.

Proponents of the temporary waiver as the pandemic continues to rage say that IP rules are hindering the urgent scale-up of COVID-19 vaccine production amid growing criticism of the inequitable distribution of shots.

The waiver’s critics include the European Union, the United States and Switzerland, all home to major pharmaceutical companies. Some have argued that waiving IP rights does not address the manufacturing and distribution capacity problems that are currently impeding drug supplies.

Two trade sources familiar with the discussions said that there was no indication of a shift in established positions at the meeting in Geneva of the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.'

more on link: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-wto/backers-of-ip-waiver-for-covid-19-drugs-make-fresh-push-at-wto-idUKKBN29O2CZ

The article doesn't mention the UK, but the British government are taking the same position as other pharma-rich countries.

And this is why I agree with what I think is @snowychap's position (though I don't want to mischaracterise), as focusing on this skirmish between the UK and the EU is in itself a reflection of enormous privilege on a global scale. We *could* have paid pharmaceutical companies an eye-bleeding sum of money to weaken or drop their IP rights, but we have not done that; we have enforced the very same scarcity that we are complaining about in this thread.

Edited January 30, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[Mic09]

3 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Does no-one else think we probably should give the EU some of the UK produced Oxford vaccines as humanitarian aid?

Perhaps 10% of our supply to the EU until they can catch up and then we'll have 10% back if we need them?

Do borders and nationalism really matter against a pandemic which doesn't discriminate?

It's a tough one because;

1) 10% of our vaccines is very little considering the EU population

2) morally, why is it better to get a vaccine to a Polish 70 year old rather than a Scottish 65 year old?

3) Why help the EU? Why not India? Why not Mexico?

4) Pandemic does not discriminate, so if your cousin dies next month because of the virus when they could have been vaccinated, are we gonna be ok with it because someone in Spain won't die?

I don't know the answer to these questions but the UK needs to be very careful with addressing those issues because lives are at stake.