The vaccine is here 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽😄😄😄

[FreeMySoul]

On 1/17/2021 at 4:06 AM, Suedehead said:

24 hours.

Arm soreness & some malaise/fatigue.

 

 

Thank you for sharing your experience. Hope all is well now. You will have the second dose next month? Did you have a choice of which vaccine you wanted or you need to take the one offered? I hear  Moderna is more effective even with new variants of the virus. 

NY/NJ the vaccine roll out has been a bit of a mess. We don't have enough vaccines as previously thought and they closed vaccination sites. I hope  personal doctors will be able to administer the vaccine because I really don't want to get my vaccine at the local bodega. 

[Raider of the lost Ark]

Astra Zeneca will regret the day, they tried to cheat out the EU. I suppose it will be more difficult and it will take much longer to get new medication approved by the EU authorities in the future. 

On the other hand, the Astra Zeneca vaccine appears to be less effective anyway. Overall just 70% and today there were reports it is only effective 8% for the age group above 65. Considering this is the high risk group, I'd rather have those people vaccinated with the Biontech or Moderna stuff. 

[Kim]

Well, credit where it's due, the UK is doing great with vaccine rollout.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the decision to extend the wait for the 2nd dose to 12 weeks, against the manufacturer recommendations.

[funkydita]

15 minutes ago, Kim said:

Well, credit where it's due, the UK is doing great with vaccine rollout.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the decision to extend the wait for the 2nd dose to 12 weeks, against the manufacturer recommendations.

Do we know how other countries are reporting vaccinations, are they counting one dose as a vaccination as we currently are on Plague Island (I’ve adopted that, thanks, Kim)? Honestly, I would trust these cunts to count my fingers. 

Oh and the crass “stronger together” mention in today’s briefing? Rather transparent, wouldn’t you say?

Does anyone know when the cyanide pills are due to arrive in the post?

[Kim]

3 minutes ago, funkydita said:

Do we know how other countries are reporting vaccinations, are they counting one dose as a vaccination as we currently are on Plague Island (I’ve adopted that, thanks, Kim)? Honestly, I would trust these cunts to count my fingers. 

Oh and the crass “stronger together” mention in today’s briefing? Rather transparent, wouldn’t you say?

Does anyone know when the cyanide pills are due to arrive in the post?

I was gonna ask that very question here but decided to be semi-positive (for once) but yeah I wonder how other countries are doing it?

I'm losing sleep over the state of our precious union! 

[karbatal]

The UK is doing really good. Let's remember, though, that they started a month earlier. 

But it's true that the logistics are working much better there.

 

[karbatal]

12 hours ago, ULIZOS said:

The ironic thing is that one of the commitments the EU did make is the following: 

"The European Commission is also committed to ensuring that everyone who needs a vaccine gets it, anywhere in the world and not only at home. No one will be safe until everyone is safe. This is why it has raised almost €16 billion since 4 May 2020 under the Coronavirus Global Response, the global action for universal access to tests, treatments and vaccines against coronavirus and for the global recovery and has confirmed its interest to participate in the COVAX Facility for equitable access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines everywhere." 

But if a country here or there gets it before the almighty EU... 

I get what you mean but it's not exactly like that. 

Vaccine production is limited. There's so much you can produce every day. That means that those who could give the money up front could reserve the vaccine dosis. That's market law. Unfair for those who can't. That happens every day in our lives: rich people always have it better. Unfair but this is how it works for all (as we saw last march and April when rich countries brought all masks and sanitisers). I wish we had a more fair system.

The EU though knows that this will only be effective if all in the world are vaccinated. That's not only getting the dose but having the infrastructure. That means (I recall) 500 million euro has been destined to help other countries to build that infrastructure. That's something positive (selfish because it's done to protect the EU too). 

 

[karbatal]

In the case of Astrazeneca, the 300 million vaccine doses were payed upfront in autumn. That was 350 million euro. And the pharma is breaching contract now. The EU has been clear this is of utmost importance for the citizens so they will take all the measures. As most production is made in Belgium, they plan controlling the borders so those doses cannot be exported. 

There's already a shortage of vaccines in the EU (after Pfizer reduced production). In Strasbourg, for example, they had to close the vaccination centre.

 

[Apples388]

12 hours ago, Kim said:

Well, credit where it's due, the UK is doing great with vaccine rollout.

 

And that is largely thanks to the NHS to be honest. Not so much the current government.

And yet I'm sure this government will use it as a victory for themselves and all will be forgotten including 'clap for carers!!1!!!!!' in the inevitable next round of NHS cuts!

 

[Apples388]

13 hours ago, FreeMySoul said:

Thank you for sharing your experience. Hope all is well now. You will have the second dose next month? Did you have a choice of which vaccine you wanted or you need to take the one offered? I hear  Moderna is more effective even with new variants of the virus. 

 

I had the Pfizer vaccine.  You don't get a choice in the UK of which vaccine you want. At the moment only Pfizer and AstraZenica are being rolled out.

As far as I am aware, all the vaccines are effective against the variants we are aware of.

[funkydita]

2 hours ago, Suedehead said:

And that is largely thanks to the NHS to be honest. Not so much the current government.

And yet I'm sure this government will use it as a victory for themselves and all will be forgotten including 'clap for carers!!1!!!!!' in the inevitable next round of NHS cuts!

 

And they’ll blame the NHS for “NHS Track and Trace” as they insist on calling it, which it obviously isn’t. It’s all just so blatant.

[Apples388]

20 minutes ago, funkydita said:

And they’ll blame the NHS for “NHS Track and Trace” as they insist on calling it, which it obviously isn’t. It’s all just so blatant.

Yep it's not NHS Track and Trace at all. It's operated through Serco!

[karbatal]

The British press spilling venom and propaganda, as they have done for decades

 

[karbatal]

Ok can we give Nicola Sturgeon the Queen of Life title @Kim ? 

 

[Kim]

1 hour ago, karbatal said:

Ok can we give Nicola Sturgeon the Queen of Life title @Kim ? 

 

Well Queen Nic is absolutely right, but it's less to do with the EU and more to do with Tory scum playing politics as usual.

Tories claim rollout is slow, NS publishes figures. Tories complain figures have been published, NS withdraws figures. Tories claim rollout is slow, NS says fuck this I'm republishing the figures. Tories claim this threatens supply, NS says tough shit.

 

 

[karbatal]

1 hour ago, Kim said:

Well Queen Nic is absolutely right, but it's less to do with the EU and more to do with Tory scum playing politics as usual.

Tories claim rollout is slow, NS publishes figures. Tories complain figures have been published, NS withdraws figures. Tories claim rollout is slow, NS says fuck this I'm republishing the figures. Tories claim this threatens supply, NS says tough shit.

 

 

Oh I thought this was to do with the rumours of the UK buying secretly the EU vaccines and Nicola publishing the details of the new amounts that will arrive! 

Of course even though it's a strong rumour in Brussels, I prefer not to think badly of any government and wait until there's an official declaration. 

At first I thought Biden had bought the EU vaccines

[Kim]

5 minutes ago, karbatal said:

Oh I thought this was to do with the rumours of the UK buying secretly the EU vaccines and Nicola publishing the details of the new amounts that will arrive! 

Of course even though it's a strong rumour in Brussels, I prefer not to think badly of any government and wait until there's an official declaration. 

At first I thought Biden had bought the EU vaccines

Oh I don't know, I'm a bit confused by the whole thing tbh. I don't think we're getting the full story.

[karbatal]

2 minutes ago, Kim said:

Oh I don't know, I'm a bit confused by the whole thing tbh. I don't think we're getting the full story.

Yeah me too. There's enough misinformation already. 

[funkydita]

Based on only a cursory reading of what’s going on, this feels terribly handled by the EU and unfortunately gives Brexiteers ammunition barely a few weeks into the exit. SIGH.

[karbatal]

21 minutes ago, funkydita said:

Based on only a cursory reading of what’s going on, this feels terribly handled by the EU and unfortunately gives Brexiteers ammunition barely a few weeks into the exit. SIGH.

According to British press. 

The discourse is totally different in the EU.

I hope this mess solves soon. 

[funkydita]

28 minutes ago, karbatal said:

According to British press. 

The discourse is totally different in the EU.

I hope this mess solves soon. 

I haven’t read enough to have a sufficient understanding to take an informed position...but, at a really basic level, I don’t quite understand how the EU signed a contract three months after the UK or how they approved the vaccine a month later than the UK.  

Share links to any useful articles, I feel I can only properly understand this by reading the contracts...I barely read my tenancy agreement so can’t see myself reading these contracts this weekend - or understanding the legal implication of the ‘best reasonable efforts’ clause (which seems to be the issue?).

[Camacho]

 

[karbatal]

9 hours ago, funkydita said:

I haven’t read enough to have a sufficient understanding to take an informed position...but, at a really basic level, I don’t quite understand how the EU signed a contract three months after the UK or how they approved the vaccine a month later than the UK.  

Share links to any useful articles, I feel I can only properly understand this by reading the contracts...I barely read my tenancy agreement so can’t see myself reading these contracts this weekend - or understanding the legal implication of the ‘best reasonable efforts’ clause (which seems to be the issue?).

It's complicated to understand because there is a lot of (imo intended) disinformation in British press. 

1. The EU paid 300 million euro in AUGUST 2020 to secure the vaccine. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-vaccine-price/eu-pays-336-mln-euros-to-secure-astrazenecas-potential-covid-19-vaccine-idUSKBN25N25X?rpc=401&

2. The EU in June 2020 approved a strategy to fund vaccine research to secure the doses once they were available. This strategy included low prices to poor countries. AstraZeneca benefited of this big time. Part of the money went to fund the 2 manufacturing plants in Belgium AND the UK.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1438

3. The European Medicine Agency is one of the most strict in the world to ensure the safety of EU citizens and only approves once all information is available. With the vaccines the protocols are being exceptionally fast, to the point that the EMA said that further tests should be made, for example, to know the real effectiveness of the vaccine with new strains. 

4. This situation has nothing to do with who approved the vaccine first. It's to do with AstraZeneca saying they will supply only 30% of the dosis in the first quarter because the EU plants are less efficient than the.UK ones. According them That's because the biological tanks in the EU are not developing the vaccine so efficiently as the British ones.

There's a link to this interview in English published by El País. In my Google only comes the Spanish version. Search for Soirot AstraZeneca El País and you will find it. 

5. Strong rumours in Brussels say that the real reason, though, is that a third country has bought at a higher price the EU doses. To ensure that this is not happening, the EU will control all exportation of the vaccine to know exactly where they are going. That includes (it's not official yet, but the British media have spread havoc reporting as a fact) the Irish border. 

6. The EU, to try to bring light into this complicated issue, decided yesterday to publish the contract. But AstraZeneca forbid to publish certain parts claiming it would breach confidential data. That means that lots of parts are not being shown. I read in Twitter lots of prominent British accounts claiming that the EU is an obscure bourocrat mess and those hidden parts is the proof. Truth is that AstraZeneca didn't allow.

[karbatal]

One positive thing for the EU after this nightmarish year is that we will finally try to be self sufficient in health emergencies. Ursula von der Leyen announced two days ago the creation of a new agency to coordinate all EU members so supplies are made in the EU and available to EU citizens. Let's not forget that at the beginning of the pandemic we discovered that almost all supplies were made in China and for months health workers had to work in trash bin bags and self made masks.

[funkydita]

1 hour ago, karbatal said:

It's complicated to understand because there is a lot of (imo intended) disinformation in British press. 

1. The EU paid 300 million euro in AUGUST 2020 to secure the vaccine. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-vaccine-price/eu-pays-336-mln-euros-to-secure-astrazenecas-potential-covid-19-vaccine-idUSKBN25N25X?rpc=401&

2. The EU in June 2020 approved a strategy to fund vaccine research to secure the doses once they were available. This strategy included low prices to poor countries. AstraZeneca benefited of this big time. Part of the money went to fund the 2 manufacturing plants in Belgium AND the UK.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1438

3. The European Medicine Agency is one of the most strict in the world to ensure the safety of EU citizens and only approves once all information is available. With the vaccines the protocols are being exceptionally fast, to the point that the EMA said that further tests should be made, for example, to know the real effectiveness of the vaccine with new strains. 

4. This situation has nothing to do with who approved the vaccine first. It's to do with AstraZeneca saying they will supply only 30% of the dosis in the first quarter because the EU plants are less efficient than the.UK ones. According them That's because the biological tanks in the EU are not developing the vaccine so efficiently. 

There's a link to this interview in English published by El País. In my Google only comes the Spanish version. Search for Soirot AstraZeneca El País and you will find it. 

5. Strong rumours in Brussels say that the real reason, though, is that a third country has bought at a higher price the EU doses. To ensure that this is not happening, the EU will control all exportation of the vaccine to know exactly where they are going. That includes (it's not official yet, but the British media have spread havoc reporting as a fact) the Irish border. 

6. The EU, to try to bring light into this complicated issue, decided to publish the contract. But AstraZeneca forbid to publish certain parts claiming it would breach confidential data. That means that lots of parts are not being shown. I read in Twitter lots of prominent accounts claiming that the EU is an obscure bourocrat mess and those hidden parts is the proof. Truth is that AstraZeneca didn't allow.

I am surprised that UK press and people in social media are shocked. Hundreds of thousands of people have died of the pandemic and the vaccine saves lifes. Of course the EU will invoke all measurements to grant the doses. And Brussels won't give a damn what a citizen in the UK thinks. Our decisions are done to secure the health of 450 million people, not to show if Brexit was a good or bad idea. If UK people are now united against the EU, it's up to them. We have more urgent things to solve.

Thanks for the links and for taking the time to reply in such detail.  

Ugh, I’ve just spent over two hours trying to get to my head around this but tbh I’m still none the wiser .  It seems all of this hinges on the definition of “best reasonable efforts” in interpreting clause 5.1?  

The contract is under the jurisdiction of Belgian law, can someone get us on a conference call with a Belgian judge?  I’m free today after 2pm.

[karbatal]

2 minutes ago, funkydita said:

Thanks for the links and for taking the time to reply in such detail.  

Ugh, I’ve just spent over two hours trying to get to my head around this but tbh I’m still none the wiser .  It seems all of this hinges on the definition of “best reasonable efforts” in interpreting clause 5.1?  

The contract is under the jurisdiction of Belgian law, can someone get us on a conference call with a Belgian judge?  I’m free today after 2pm.

 

We do a better research simply using Google than most journos with important positions. 

The issue is coming complicated, in my opinion, because this is a big pharma with their usually abusive and obscure contracts. 

And of course we citizens will argue between us, blaming Brussels or London instead of demanding changes in law to stop the abuse and greed from pharmaceutical companies.

[funkydita]

57 minutes ago, karbatal said:

 

We do a better research simply using Google than most journos with important positions. 

The issue is coming complicated, in my opinion, because this is a big pharma with their usually abusive and obscure contracts. 

And of course we citizens will argue between us, blaming Brussels or London instead of demanding changes in law to stop the abuse and greed from pharmaceutical companies.

This is why we need a Belgian judge.  Googling and social media commentary is a total headfuck because you need to ascertain the political affiliations, funding, positions on Brexit, opinions on the EU etc. of the sources and the platforms on which they’re published.

And yes, big pharma is definitely evil...but isn’t AstraZeneca making the vaccine available on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic (or, as I just read, up until July 2021 or until they deem the pandemic over based on a number of factors, and in perpetuity for lower income countries)?

I need to watch some trashy TV to clear my head.  Did anyone find that Belgian judge yet?

[funkydita]

5 hours ago, Junior said:

 

OJ Simpson has almost a million followers on Twitter?!  At least he said “get your shot” rather than “get your jab”.

[karbatal]

2 hours ago, funkydita said:

This is why we need a Belgian judge.  Googling and social media commentary is a total headfuck because you need to ascertain the political affiliations, funding, positions on Brexit, opinions on the EU etc. of the sources and the platforms on which they’re published.

And yes, big pharma is definitely evil...but isn’t AstraZeneca making the vaccine available on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic (or, as I just read, up until July 2021 or until they deem the pandemic over based on a number of factors, and in perpetuity for lower income countries)?

I need to watch some trashy TV to clear my head.  Did anyone find that Belgian judge yet?

That's the perverse narrative. AstraZeneca is making the vaccine available non profit BECAUSE OF the EU conditions. And yet some media is painting the pharma as some kind of non profit firm

[funkydita]

26 minutes ago, karbatal said:

That's the perverse narrative. AstraZeneca is making the vaccine available non profit BECAUSE OF the EU conditions. And yet some media is painting the pharma as some kind of non profit firm

I’m not quite sure that’s the case though, the vaccine is being offered worldwide on a not-for-profit basis and that was before the EU deal? Wasn’t it one of the conditions set by Oxford when looking for a partner that ended up being AstraZeneca? Again it’s all so confusing!