(Strasburg) If you haven't noticed the World has been under the grip of a COVID (C19) pandemic this past year. as of 26/02/21 2.5 million people have died and that's just the ones who have been recorded as victims
In response many nations set about mitigating the threat of C19 by setting their best scientists to come up with a vaccine and that they did. One such vaccine is the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, designed by Oxford university using a viral vector vaccine whom they handed over production to AstraZeneca with a stipulation written into the contract that it will be sold at cost to the world, which is why it sells for around $3 as opposed to others which sell for around $30. Anyway The British Government funded the development of the vaccine to the tune of
£84 Million with no guarantees and all the risks borne by the Government. That was in May 2020. The UK also made numerous deals with other vaccine developers resulting in it procuring on paper enough doses to inject each person 5 times.
Now before you think greedy. this was with companies before they had successfully produced a vaccine. The EU took a slightly different track and in contrast to the
Uk and US throwing money at the problem, they instead decided to barter in which to get a better deal, fine if things went to plan that would be great. unfortunately things didn't go to plan. unlike the Uk and US the EU at the start of 2021 had placed all its eggs in one basket, that basket contained
3 eggs:The Pfizer vaccine (200 million doses)
The Sanofi/GSK vaccine (300 million doses)
Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (300 million doses)
Now most people will have heard of the Pfizer and the Oxford/AstraZenica, but Sanofi. Well thats a vaccine the French were/are developing and the French pushed the EU to reject an offer of 500 million doses of the Pfizer in which to ensure that the EU had a pure EU (French) vaccine. The thing is Sanofi which was meant to be ready by December, was pushed back to Jan , then Feb and last month it was pushed back to Oct 2021. Not to worry EU still had the other two, then in January, Pfizer stated it would have to cut production in which to improve its production line in which to be able to provide for the increase in demand. Not to worry the EU still has Oxford/AstraZeneca to fall back on. and then they too stated that its European plants would be unable to supply what they said they could due to poor yields at its plant in Belgium which is exactly what AZ experienced at its 2 plants in the Uk in August last year when its delivery date of 30 million doses by September was pushed back to Nov with a total of 4 million doses by year end. AZ and the Gov set about rectifying the problem and by the start of the year both UK plants were working as expected.
The EU not happy with seeing their final egg not turn up trumps, went into a hissy fit and demanded that AZ redirect vaccines from the UK plants to the EU despite the UK having signed their contract with AZ 3 months before the EU. They then publicly attacked the Uk threatening to halt any deliveries of vaccines the Uk had ordered from the EU. they even forced a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland contrary to their own demands that the UK has to keep NI in line with the EU. that lasted a few hours. instead of sitting down behind closed doors in which to resolve the issue with AstraZeneca the EU tried to force arm them publicly by going to the press, when that plan of action didn't work they took to character assassinating the vaccine by claiming it isn't good enough and they won't be vaccinating over 65s year olds with it. A stance repeated across the EU, which I suppose would be a political fix in which to explain to the EU masses wanting a vaccine why they can't be vaccinated, not due to their ineptness but rather due to the poor effective ness of the AZ vaccine.
The thing is
paper after
paper shows that the a single standard dose of AZ provides an efficacy from day 22 to day 90 post
vaccination of 76% with protection not falling in this three-month period After the second dose vaccine efficacy from two standard
doses is 82.4% with the 3-month interval being used in the UK. (82.4%
effective, with a 95% confidence interval of 62.7% - 91.7% at 12+ weeks) and the reason for Macrons outburst the test group of 100 people had nobody over 65 in it.
Ok but this is where it gets silly. The UK had by 24/02/21 given the 1st of 2 jabs to just shy of a third of its population with 18.91 million people
The next country with the highest number of vaccines doses administered is Germany at 5.5 million. Now I mentioned silly, It was revealed yesterday that out of the 6,134,707 doses of the AZ vaccine received by the EU.4,849,752 doses haven't been utilised not only that, but the vaccine hasn't been redirected to people under 65 as the EU leaders stated would only receive the vaccine, there are even evidence that people are refusing to accept the vaccine despite it been given the ok, by the EUs
European Medicines Agency
