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Covid-19 #28: Astra Projecting is an Out of Body Experience


Fragile Bird

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Well its a grey coolish day and I was having a hard time getting motivated to get up and about but I happened to notice I had received an email from my hospital and I screamed and leapt out of bed and raced to my desk and logged in to their system and with 3 clicks had scheduled my first dose of the vaccine for this Friday.  I could have scheduled it as soon as this Tuesday but I am lecturing that night and didn't want to risk feeling anything while having to lecture.

It's been a bit weird with the vaccine here as Chicago is on a different schedule than the rest of Illinois since we get our own allotment of doses and we have been weeks behind the rest of the state on everything.  So technically I think Illinois is opening up to everyone 16+ in the next week but Chicago is only moving to people with certain professions and underlying conditions this week.

Anyway, just thankful that my hospital is just so on the ball - they have been great for everyone I know here - and that I did not have to deal with vaccine hunting websites and having to enter a bunch of information in another system.

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1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

I do know that. That’s why some of these statements about ‘vaccine diplomacy’ are a bit wonky

Hey, it’s you Brits who have been using all the crap about vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy to distract from what you do. The UK and the US.

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4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Hey, it’s you Brits who have been using all the crap about vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy to distract from what you do. The UK and the US.

What did the UK do ?

Just now, Filippa Eilhart said:

well, in Russia and China there is a very thin line between ‘country’ and ‘company’

Yes this is where there is a big crossover 

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1 hour ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

well, in Russia and China there is a very thin line between ‘country’ and ‘company’

Yes.  The EU feels itself bound by the contracts signed by companies who have factories located in the EU.  The Russian government owns Sputnik (as far as I can see), so it can do whatever it wants with it.

Thus, I can see a big difference between the Russian government exporting Sputnik and the EU/countries allowing companies do so.

In fact, I see the NY Times has a headline today saying that Russia is quietly importing Sputnik from Korea, so it has already partly outsourced the product. 

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It seems that Sputnik V will get approval in Germany relatively soon. Kind of ridiculous that Germany might receive the vaccine from „evil“ Russia before any vaccine from the US will arrive on European shores...

We should also keep in mind that we are still at the very beginning of the whole vaccination process and several mutations (Brazil, South Africa) already suggest a continuous effort over the next couple of years will be necessary. Will be fun. 

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

What did the UK do ?

Oh, I don't know, using up all the vaccines produced in the country, maybe? And even importing 20 of mio manufactured inside the EU to boot? Real class act there.

 

42 minutes ago, Arakan said:

It seems that Sputnik V will get approval in Germany relatively soon. Kind of ridiculous that Germany might receive the vaccine from „evil“ Russia before any vaccine from the US will arrive on European shores...

At some point, the Union will have to seriously reconsider which countries it considers to be its friends, because the 2 major ones definitely don't act like friends, more like hostile powers.

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44 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Oh, I don't know, using up all the vaccines produced in the country, maybe? And even importing 20 of mio manufactured inside the EU to boot? Real class act there.

Hmm so it invested in the production of a vaccine, its domestic supply chain, signed contracts ahead of everyone else purchased those vaccines , and also bought other vaccines from other companies. Is that right?
 

The difference is the EU is preventing the export of vaccines from private companies because they say they are not living up to their contracts ( we’ll see how true that is because you’d suspect that if it were true they wouldn’t need to be behaving they way they are towards AZ)

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EU invested as well, including into AZ. Buying everything available before everyone else, then telling the others to suck it up is a real adult behaviour, when you have thousands of people dying. Specially when you want to have good relations with them. Specially when you claim the high ground of Western superiority - democracy, human rights, free-trade and all that shit. And then you do it to your fellow Western countries.

That companies are involved is of no matter. The only thing that matters is: how many vaccines have been manufactured in any given country / how many vaccines were actually allowed to be exported - either because there wasn't a ban or because home country didn't pressure the company and bought the whole production beforehand. The rest is just window-dressing.

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21 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Hmm so it invested in the production of a vaccine, its domestic supply chain, signed contracts ahead of everyone else purchased those vaccines , and also bought other vaccines from other companies. Is that right?
 

The difference is the EU is preventing the export of vaccines from private companies because they say they are not living up to their contracts ( we’ll see how true that is because you’d suspect that if it were true they wouldn’t need to be behaving they way they are towards AZ)

Give me a break. Biontech development was subsidized by the German government. The UK can be happy that the EU is very nice. Strange you didn’t get anything from your big buddy US. If the EU were as ruthless as the US and UK, BJ would come begging. Never forget one thing: in the grand scheme of things the UK is maybe lower table PL, whereas EU is peak best of Real Madrid/Barca/Bayern. 

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16 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The difference is the EU is preventing the export of vaccines from private companies because they say they are not living up to their contracts ( we’ll see how true that is because you’d suspect that if it were true they wouldn’t need to be behaving they way they are towards AZ)

I'm not sure what that means.  Are you saying that AZ is living up to its contract? :)

1 hour ago, Arakan said:

It seems that Sputnik V will get approval in Germany relatively soon. Kind of ridiculous that Germany might receive the vaccine from „evil“ Russia before any vaccine from the US will arrive on European shores...

Really?  I've seen a suggestion it may be approved in June?  Sputnik is still struggling to provide the info required and having factories outside the EU complicates things.  And even if it is approved, there is not a big surplus available.  There is a factory being upgraded in Italy I believe.  It may be ready in July.  But even then, its not going to be providing huge volumes straight away.

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1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

EU invested as well, including into AZ. Buying everything available before everyone else, then telling the others to suck it up is a real adult behaviour, when you have thousands of people dying. Specially when you want to have good relations with them. Specially when you claim the high ground of Western superiority - democracy, human rights, free-trade and all that shit. And then you do it to your fellow Western countries.

That companies are involved is of no matter. The only thing that matters is: how many vaccines have been manufactured in any given country / how many vaccines were actually allowed to be exported - either because there wasn't a ban or because home country didn't pressure the company and bought the whole production beforehand. The rest is just window-dressing.

 Well as has been established, it’s not countries exporting vaccines, it’s companies. The UK invested massively, got the domestic supply chain up and running and signed contracts while the EU was diddling around. Remember we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the EU had done it’s job.

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

I'm not sure what that means.  Are you saying that AZ is living up to its contract? :)

 

Depends on the contract and what is meant by best efforts. Clearly the EU isnt so certain of its position otherwise it wouldn’t be using bully boy tactics to get its way. 

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53 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Remember we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the EU had done it’s job.

Oh sure, EU was stupid because it assumed US and UK and their firms would do the whole process in good faith, which obviously they didn't.

Thing is, if both EU and UK had kept for their own use all the vaccines manufactured there, the vaccination rate would be quite similar between EU and UK - because half the vaccines used in UK were imported from EU and half of vaccines produced inside EU were actually exported. Of course, with such a logic, many Western countries wouldn't even have access to vaccines, and outside, only a few like China and India would be able to vaccinate.

But indeed, it's wrong to blame only UK and US for basically seizing all their vaccines. Blame should also be ascribed to every single government who obeyed Big Pharma and stated there was no need to make licences and processes public as soon as phase 3 produced good results and vaccines were approved.

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Depends on the contract and what is meant by best efforts. Clearly the EU isnt so certain of its position otherwise it wouldn’t be using bully boy tactics to get its way. 

That makes no sense.  If the EU was certain (assuming it isn't) what would it be doing differently?

Best efforts has a legal definition.  I think its fairly clear that it was almost impossible for AZ to hit its contracted target.  Even if the EU got all of the UK's doses, it would have still been way short of the required quantities. 

Saying you were going to do your best to do the impossible is a laughable proposition.  If you want to blame the EU, blame them for believing in AZ.

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The Australian game of COVID wack-a-mole continues, with Brisbane going into another short lock down for contact tracing purposes. Currently a small cluster of 7 people with no known connection between several of them.

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On 3/27/2021 at 10:46 AM, rotting sea cow said:

So basically Macron is the French Trump that only gets free pass by the media.

Pretty much. Generally speaking, Trump and Macron's policies bear striking similarities (especially if we look at their policies toward the 1%).

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The UK invested massively, got the domestic supply chain up and running and signed contracts while the EU was diddling around. Remember we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the EU had done it’s job.

Fun fact: if we go by contracts alone, the EU signed its contract with AZ the day before the UK did.
Generally speaking, the EU was almost as fast as the UK despite its bureaucracy. For instance, the EU and the UK both signed a contract with Moderna the same day.
So -as always?- you have it backwards. The reason why there is a conversation is precisely because the EU was never that slow or "diddling around" despite its bureaucracy, and despite not having a mandate to organize a common health strategy in the first place.
In fact, I don't hold the EU in particularly high esteem, so I'm very pleasantly surprised that it has at this point purchased 2,6 billion doses of 6 different vaccines, and is planning not just to immunize its population but to help other countries immunize theirs as well. And if the media is to be believed, it negotiated significantly lower prices with BigPharma thanks to its collective purchasing power.
By any metric, given all the obstacles to collective action, the EU is actually on its way to scoring a resounding success, one that might very well help bring its members closer and build a stronger alliance for the future.
I wonder how the fuckup of a pharmaceutical company (AZ), proving unable to deliver the doses it promised to everyone, somehow becomes the EU "not doing its job." It almost sounds as if you're trying to convince yourself of something here...

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36 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Pretty much. Generally speaking, Trump and Macron's policies bear striking similarities (especially if we look at their policies toward the 1%).

Fun fact: if we go by contracts alone, the EU signed its contract with AZ the day before the UK did.
Generally speaking, the EU was almost as fast as the UK despite its bureaucracy. For instance, the EU and the UK both signed a contract with Moderna the same day.
So -as always?- you have it backwards. The reason why there is a conversation is precisely because the EU was never that slow or "diddling around" despite its bureaucracy, and despite not having a mandate to organize a common health strategy in the first place.
In fact, I don't hold the EU in particularly high esteem, so I'm very pleasantly surprised that it has at this point purchased 2,6 billion doses of 6 different vaccines, and is planning not just to immunize its population but to help other countries immunize theirs as well. And if the media is to be believed, it negotiated significantly lower prices with BigPharma thanks to its collective purchasing power.
By any metric, given all the obstacles to collective action, the EU is actually on its way to scoring a resounding success, one that might very well help bring its members closer and build a stronger alliance for the future.
I wonder how the fuckup of a pharmaceutical company (AZ), proving unable to deliver the doses it promised to everyone, somehow becomes the EU "not doing its job." It almost sounds as if you're trying to convince yourself of something here...

Reminds me of the criticisms leveled against Canada. They're pretty much word for word the same and seem to exists as a way to excuse provincial failures in containment. IE The third wave that's happening is apparently because of a lack of vaccines, not because provinces are yo-yoing their restrictions or just doing basically nothing.

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1 hour ago, Impmk2 said:

The Australian game of COVID wack-a-mole continues, with Brisbane going into another short lock down for contact tracing purposes. Currently a small cluster of 7 people with no known connection between several of them.

Some of this nomenclature makes no sense, for instance it being called a cluster while having unconnected cases. A great deal of ink has been spilled in the physical sciences on precise definitions of clusters, all of which usually utilize either proximity and/or connectedness as a way to arrive there. I presume they use it more in the geographic sense as in clustered in Queensland.

I did take a look at the 7 cases per the Guardian, and it looks like its 5+2 (the 2 being a nurse and her sister who appear unconnected). With such small numbers, even 1 undiagnosed person could easily be the missing link between the two clusters.

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