EU turns it's vaccine export blocking powers on Australia

[Workingman]

So, here's a much more level headed version than the knee-jerk EU is an Evil Empire one.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said while he had requested the review, he could also understand why Italy made the decision.

"In Italy, people are dying at the rate of 300 a day. And so I can certainly understand the high level of anxiety that would exist in Italy and in many countries across Europe," he said.

and

Scott Morrison hopes four million Australians will have been vaccinated by the end of March.

Australia has a contract with AstraZeneca to receive 53.8m doses of the vaccine. About 3.8m of those will be imported from overseas.

It has already been sent 300,000 doses, which the government says will last until late March, when it will begin making its own AstraZeneca vaccines domestically.

Italy: 2.9m cases and nearly 99,000 deaths.
Australia:29,000 cases and 900 deaths.

Compare and contrast which is in most need. Italy 2.4 x the population of Australia 110 x the deaths.

[Suff]

You can bet the US is milking it for all it is worth.

Why would that be Suff? Trade reasons? I thought Biden was going to be more chummy with the EU than Trump?

The EU and the US compete for the same international trade. Anything which looks like bad faith can be used as a lever to drive business one way or another. Under Trump the US lost out on international business, however it repatriated so much home that it was lost in the noise. Now Biden needs to repair those bridges and what is better than an untrustworthy EU as a lever to get his foot in the door?

[Suff]

So, here's a much more level headed version than the knee-jerk EU is an Evil Empire one.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said while he had requested the review, he could also understand why Italy made the decision.

"In Italy, people are dying at the rate of 300 a day. And so I can certainly understand the high level of anxiety that would exist in Italy and in many countries across Europe," he said.

and

Scott Morrison hopes four million Australians will have been vaccinated by the end of March.

Australia has a contract with AstraZeneca to receive 53.8m doses of the vaccine. About 3.8m of those will be imported from overseas.

It has already been sent 300,000 doses, which the government says will last until late March, when it will begin making its own AstraZeneca vaccines domestically.

Italy: 2.9m cases and nearly 99,000 deaths.
Australia:29,000 cases and 900 deaths.

Compare and contrast which is in most need. Italy 2.4 x the population of Australia 110 x the deaths.

Hmmm, where to start with that one?

So the EU, as a whole, is nearly as heavily impacted with Covid as the US, person for person. The EU, as a result, drags it's feet, makes a song and dance about how the EU is "doing it properly" and not being "slipshod" like the UK and Russia.

Great, more power the EU, we're so great, we're so wonderful, rah, rah, rah.

Then the people of the EU find out that "doing it properly" means applying bureaucratic processes which add months to the approval process, then adds another bureaucratic process where the EU sourcing of a vaccine cannot begin until a certain stage of the overly long winded approval process.

This put the EU between 3 and 6 months behind everyone else. Vaccine envy set in. If we're so good and we're so wonderful "why the F is everyone else doing better than us?".

The answer "they're all so irresponsible and we're not" simply didn't wash. The UK and US medical authorities have two of the highest standards in the world. What inference could the people of the EU take? "We're good at bullshit which is why everyone else is doing better than us?".

Then the dead hand of the EU state stepped in. It's the companies, we'll punish them. Not true the companies said, we had exactly the same problems with everyone else you just chose to put your money down 3 months later so you will get out of "production hell" three months later.

So then the EU decided they would block vaccine exports for companies which had not "met their quota". Now this is a very dangerous and slippery slope for an entity which claims to be the largest "Trading Bloc" in the world. Because there is that word, Trade. AZ took orders from all over the world to be produced with their EU facilities. They are partly EU so would, of course, manufacture in the EU. Then the EU decided to "sequester" all the output. Reneging on the deals that their EU companies from their premier EU trading bloc had created.

If it mattered so much that people were dying, the EU would have put in place interim solutions to approve vaccines so that they could be at the forefront of the vaccination ladder.

The EU chose not to do that, they decided that their processes, laws and "directives" were far more important that dying EU citizens.

Now that this has come home to roost, they are trying to foist off the blame on anyone but the people who are to blame. Namely the Institutions of the European Union.

The rest of the countries in the world may not understand the fine grain divisions within the EU, but the EU member states do. This is not over by a very long shot. Not within the EU and not for EU trade with other countries in the world.

[Workingman]

Hmmm, where to start with that one?

Says he, then gives it another body swerve....complete with the War and Peace length version of deflection.

Re the original vaccines issue: All Australia's graphs have flat lined since November. Its daily cases are in single figures and its last death was on the 1st of January. It is not at death's door in the same way that Italy is, as the Australian PM so rightly and truthfully accepts.

Please stop ranting on about the untrustworthy and twatish EU and get some bloody perspective.

[Suff]

I have some perspective.

The EU fucked up, big time. It is lashing out at everyone else, including trying to downplay the AZ vaccine for older people (those in greatest need), to the point where there are tens of millions of doses of AZ sitting in storage throughout the EU, unused, whilst the EU rails about vaccines being sent to countries which have very few deaths.

Perspective. The EU is killing it's own citizens because of a fit of pique and a lack of any sort of ability to execute. Then they come out and say that Aus can't have a quarter of a million because they don't have many deaths?

Yes I have some perspective. Yet is seems many others do not. Let's get clear here. From the very beginning this has been about exchanging lives for continuity and the ability to exit this pandemic with a functioning economy and the slightest chance of winning the next election. Please don't tell me it has not, because historical analysis will tell you exactly that.

So, now, whilst 300 people a day die in Italy, the Italian government is having to run information programs Begging the over 60's to take the AZ vaccine. Why? Because THEY, THEMSELVES, said it was no use. But, in fact, it is the vaccine they have most of, it is effective which has been proven in phase3 trials and bountiful evidence in the UK.

So I'm not body swerving this at all. The reason that Italy and everyone else is in this mess with vaccines is because they are arrogant, overconfident and incompetent. The reason they have decided to block outgoing vaccines, when they have tens of millions of unused doses in stock, is because they are arrogant, overconfident and incompetent and need someone else to blame.

This will, without a doubt, impact relations in the future. It will also impact the EU's place in the upcoming vaccination of the rest of the world. Aus is building it's own supply, India is ramping up beyond their needs, the UK already ramped up to supply the UK rapidly then use the capacity to sell, at cost, the remaining vaccines to the 3rd world until the world was vaccinated.

The EU? They're going to be covered in barge pole marks.

Face it, it is fact. This is business and politics. Not just politics.

[Suff]

Interesting news on the AZ vaccine over the last day or so. Also some clarity.

So AZ can't supply the vaccine because the Lab in Belgium, not owned by AZ, but just bought out by an American company in Jan, is unable to bring up the shortfall.

Also an answer as to why Italy blocked the export. Because the vaccines made in Belgium are then sent to Italy for packaging and then from Italy are distributed to their final destination.

So what is a poor EU to do when they can't get enough of a vaccine that the major countries have been playing down as ineffective and not to be given to the age groups they are currently vaccinating????

They go to the US and ask for two different things:

First they want finished vaccines manufactured in the US to be sent to the EU.
Second they want raw materials for vaccine manufacture to be sent to the EU so they can make enough of their own.

Of course having first tried to lean on the UK and use their contract which included UK factories even though they knew, categorically, that those factories would not BE in the EU when the vaccine was rolled out, and having been told to take a flying copulate at a rolling donut.

Now whilst Biden is a lot less "US first" than Trump was, I can hardly see him having a huge amount of sympathy with the EU. We shall see.

The whole thing is a screwup in the making of biblical proportions. If you look at the history (god forbit the press actually do that), you see that on the 20th June 2020:

Novasep, a French company and European leader in the production of viral vectors, announces that it has signed a partnership with the biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for the production of the Oxford University vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection

And where do we hear the name Novasep in the press?

And it states that:

This partnership follows the agreement between AstraZeneca and the Inclusive Alliance for Vaccines (IAV), whose members are France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, to supply the Oxford University's COVID-19 vaccine for the year 2021 for Europe.

That was in June.

Then on August 14th, nearly Two Months later,

PUBLISHED
14 August 2020
First European Commission COVID-19 vaccine agreement enables all EU member states to access the vaccine at no profit during the pandemic

AstraZeneca has concluded an agreement with the European Commission (EC) to supply up to 400 million doses of the AZD1222 COVID-19 vaccine. Building on the existing agreement with Europe’s Inclusive Vaccines Alliance spearheaded by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, this new agreement will give all EU member states the option to access the vaccine in an equitable manner at no profit during the pandemic. It also allows EU member states to redirect doses to other European countries.

Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer, said: “This first vaccine agreement with the European Commission will ensure that millions of Europeans have access to the AZD1222 vaccine following its approval. With production in our European supply chain soon to be started, we hope to make the vaccine available widely and rapidly, with the first doses to be delivered by the end of 2020.

Then on Jan 15th 2021,

Thermo Fisher Scientific Acquires Viral Vector Manufacturing Business from Novasep

Followed, FINALLY by the approval for the use of the vaccine on 29th Jan 2021.

Now I don't know about anyone else, but I've just been through a divestment with a pretty big company ($12bn total annual revenue). You don't get to start anything, sequester anything, order anything or DO anything which is not vitally required at that time in order to fulfil an existing commitment which requires delivery Right the hell now.

So we have the UK and Astrazenica taking the brunt of the blame for a cascade of failures in production and delivery of a vaccine, produced by a totally different country under contract by a mix of EU countries who position themselves as the "best in the world", yet the UK and AstraZenica seem to be the whipping boy for the EU to crawl out under from their own catastrophic inability either to approve the vaccine or, even more vitally, give at least 1 months notice as to when it would be approved.

The statements above about the need to get the ingredients to make the vaccine are the most damning of the lot. Because that means that Novasep didn't prepare in the slightest way until the very last gasp before approval and have found themselves in a position where they are unable to procure the fundamental ingredients in order to make the vaccines.

Were I an EU citizen I'd be very angry. Very angry indeed and were I actually told the truth; not at the UK or AstraZenica.

Yet, last year, we were subjected to heaps of abuse because the UK was to "go it alone" and "ignore the EU program" which was "clearly going to be better than ours", because we're just "so crap". It is funny how the truth is so often diametrically opposed to the general opinion of the people isn't it?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry over this. All I can say is all my French friends are well, healthy and are able to simply wait it out until the EU get their collective shit together.

Don't hold you breath on Biden pulling this chestnut out of the fire. He has his own chestnuts roasting over vaccines in the US

[Workingman]

And all that guff has what, exactly, to do with 250,000 doses made in Italy and not sent to Australia? The Australia which officially accepts that Italy is in dire straits and is in greater need but nonetheless has to go through due process and ask for a review of its contract.

From the article, but not quoted as it did not fit the narrative:

Safe Harbor Statement (From the Yanks who now own Novasep)
The following constitutes a "Safe Harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties relating to: the duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic; the need to develop new products and adapt to significant technological change; implementation of strategies for improving growth; general economic conditions and related uncertainties; dependence on customers' capital spending policies and government funding policies; the effect of economic and political conditions and exchange rate fluctuations on international operations; use and protection of intellectual property; the effect of changes in governmental regulations; and the effect of laws and regulations governing government contracts, as well as the possibility that expected benefits related to recent or pending acquisitions may not materialize as expected. Additional important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are set forth in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, under the caption “Risk Factors,” which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available in the “Investors” section of our website under the heading “SEC Filings.” While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if estimates change and, therefore, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to today.

Hedging bets and get out clauses. Whoda thunk it? Happens all the time.

I've had enough now - toe nails to clip and nose hair needs trimming.

[Suff]

There is no manufacturing in Italy. There are two labs, the newly owned US one in Belgium and the other one in the NL.

The vaccines are shipped to Italy and packaged for delivery from there.

We shall see how this plays out but the most important statement in the reams of drivel is that the EU is looking to source raw materials for vaccines. Which goes a very long way to explaining just why the companies cannot ramp up.

As sourcing should have happened shortly after the deal was signed, this is hardly the fault of either AZ or the American company.

AZ was building bioreactors and buying supplies in the UK in September!