Covid 19 Coronavirus

[Jak*]

"You can't run healthcare or education from a balance sheet, without some harsh compromises"
I couldn’t agree more. We are all now paying the cost of Tory cuts.
It makes me laugh when I hear Bojo wittering on about how much they care about education and that is why they want to get children back into school. Utter bollocks, they have spent years destroying the education system in this country and under funding it. If they cared about children’s welfare it wouldn’t take a footballer to show them the necessity of free school meals during the holidays. They want kids back in school because they provide childcare.
The hypocrisy of encouraging us to clap for the NHS after all their cuts and refusal to give nurses a decent pay rise is disgusting.
Still the NHS will soon be getting an extra £350 million a week.

[daveuprite]

https://www.connexionfrance.com/French- ... rVEHjh5CLA

[Asgard]

Nowhere does your post address anything but Covid - which has been one of the biggest problems from some of the medical profession and certainly the government.

The mind boggles....What do you expect the medical profession to concentrate on?

[daveuprite]

This whole vaccine contract obligations row is complicated, as it usually is when contracts break down. We said, you said etc... I've no idea who is obliged to make how many doses for whom. It'll come out in the wash I guess.

But the bigger picture IMO is that vaccine nationalism will get us nowhere. We all have very leaky borders and simply can not prevent the virus from entering or leaving different countries. Which basically means that we are only as safe as the weakest link. The place in the world that is immunising least will always present a threat to its neighbours (and with air travel, everyone is a neighbour).

For me this means that ultimately it is just as important that a Khazak peasant or an Indonesian milkman gets their jabs as it is for me or my mum. We will never free ourselves of the disease until the vast majority of the world has been successfully and fully inoculated, and any remaining people have protection via vaccine-led herd immunity. That's where we are with smallpox for instance, which was wiped out via mass vaccination by the late 1970s.

The problem right now, which is hopefully a temporary one, is that demand for covid vaccine is enormous and supply limited. This will inevitably lead to rows over who gets it first, who deserves the credit for developing it, who profits from it, who can afford it, who should share it, and on and on. Like small kids fighting over who gets the new toy.

Of course there's a lot at stake. The economy that can successfully insulate itself from covid can begin being productive again before others and get a competitive advantage. But it will never be truly insulated from the disease until everyone has protection.

[Tonibe63]

I agree about the Worldwide herd immunity approach Dave. However the EU has messed up big time regarding Ox/AZ vaccine which the EMA still hasn't approved-they have been dragging their feet for over a month. The EU appears to be acting like a school yard bully that makes a mistake but instead of owning up and apologising they decide to wield the big stick by marching in to factories and make accusations against the very people it is relying upon to save it's arse.
Of course the tabloid press are having a feeding frenzy which will do nothing to quell any nationalists within the UK.
It is time for the EU to be honest with it's citizens, show some leadership and stop fuelling the fire.

[daveuprite]

I agree about the Worldwide herd immunity approach Dave. However the EU has messed up big time regarding Ox/AZ vaccine which the EMA still hasn't approved-they have been dragging their feet for over a month. The EU appears to be acting like a school yard bully that makes a mistake but instead of owning up and apologising they decide to wield the big stick by marching in to factories and make accusations against the very people it is relying upon to save it's arse.
Of course the tabloid press are having a feeding frenzy which will do nothing to quell any nationalists within the UK.
It is time for the EU to be honest with it's citizens, show some leadership and stop fuelling the fire.

I honestly don't know. It's in the hands of contract lawyers now so lay commentators like us are unlikely to get to the bottom of it, for a while at least. The EU clearly had a supply contract with AZ, invested in the company, and it's clearly not got enough doses right now. Whose fault/blame that is we won't discover until later I suspect, by which time I should think the supply side will have caught up with demand and it may seem academic by then. The UK brexit-supporting press is absolutely desperate for a good anti-EU story right now to divert attention from the total chaos of brexit (look, a squirrel..) so they'll be milking this as a 'them-and-us' battle.

The UK has a distinct advantage in this area. It is a global leader in bio-tech / biochemistry research and development. Has been for years. So Johnson has been blessed (luck, not judgement of course) with ready access to the best in scientific capability on his doorstep. Worth remembering that no scientific research at this level is done without extensive international cooperation and highly qualified experts from all over the world. No one country is ever likely to develop this capacity solely using its own citizens, nor would it be sensible to do so.

The hard brexit Johnson has committed the UK to does bring one advantage. In extremis, in emergency situations, the UK will be able to be an outlier. In normal circumstances - those that face the country 99.999% of the time - there will be no point in going it alone, discouraging collaboration, creating a hostile environment for expert foreign workers etc etc. But in the highly unusual circumstances facing the country now, the UK can throw money at a problem that it is well equipped to tackle (i.e. covid vaccine development).

The EU roll out is clearly much slower, and the EMA (which has just approved the AZ jab an hour ago) is working to a slower approval timetable. I don't know why. It's disappointing. I'm looking forward to getting the jab myself here in France, although I can understand why a perfect physical specimen like me is a long way down the queue. Once the roll-out gathers pace in mainland Europe, the advantages of being in a big procurement block will probably show themselves. It will certainly be cheaper.

Thanks goodness that the country with the worst case-load and death record in Europe is the one with best access to the new vaccines right now. It might save a lot of lives. This is no comfort to all those families whose loved ones were lost as a direct result of government incompetence, dithering and lack of care.

[flamair]

Nowhere does your post address anything but Covid - which has been one of the biggest problems from some of the medical profession and certainly the government.

The mind boggles....What do you expect the medical profession to concentrate on?

Erm.

The other 98% of the population that hasn't got Covid? Do they not count?

The majority that get Covid do not require any medical intervention. Yes, some do, but they are a low percentage.of the total.

There are many, many people suffering from illnesses where medical intervention is vital.
A lot of those poor sods have been virtually ignored for ten months. Ask any oncologist what their concerns are..Almost 50% fewer cancer diagnoses in the last ten months for example. Sadly, that's not because 50% fewer have cancer, just it hasn't been found. For some it will now be too late.


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[Flipflop]

My cousin had cancer and was due an operation, during the first lock down it was cancelled. The operation would have allowed for further treatment which could have prolonged his life considerably.
Unfortunately he died. I don’t know what the answer is but it’s very sad all round.

[Tonibe63]

My cousin had cancer and was due an operation, during the first lock down it was cancelled. The operation would have allowed for further treatment which could have prolonged his life considerably.
Unfortunately he died. I don’t know what the answer is but it’s very sad all round.

Very sad, sorry for your loss.
My Mum was due for an appointment in April last year that was cancelled and in August she was rushed in for emergency cancer operation which she never came home from, she passed away in November.
The sooner we get this thing on the ropes the sooner we can start on the backlog of 'normal' stuff.

[simonw]

I read the published contract earlier and it seems pretty straightforward in that AZ commits to deliver using "Best Reasonable Efforts", which of course being a contract is a defined term. The definition however is somewhat woolly and effectively just says that AZ will take the sorts of steps that a company of that size/nature would take [to supply]...given the urgent nature of the ask. I can't see an obvious breach.

Aside from the details, it is odd to go so public so quickly on a contractual dispute. One reason for doing so might be where your position is not as robust as you might like and you therefore need to try to achieve success by some other means than simply a matter of law. In the interests of balance, there may well be other reasons for going public quickly too, of course. Prima facie, albeit a skim, I can't see a breach.