EU will probably follow suit and ban AstraZeneca. in many EU countries is restricted to under 55
Also funny, the AZ contract is the only one that leaked. And they are by no means the only one to face production ramp up issues.
Biontech is getting the opposite reporting in Germany. That is somewhat puzzling.
EDIT: The South African strain seems to be a challenge, the Novavax and J&J vaccines are also less effective (source:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/30/two-new-covid-...).
There is good reason to believe it will be efficient on older people, but efficiency for elderly hasn't been proven.
> Also funny, the AZ contract is the only one that leaked.
It wasn't leaked, the EU and AZ agreed to publish it. And it is also not the only one that was published. The CureVac contract was also published.
Only after that AZ clarified what the 8% really mean. And yes, efficiency is not yet proven. Unproven efficiency is quite a different thing from a claimed 8% efficiency so.
I see a real pro Biontech and anti AZ campaign going on in the German media. One that is quite welcome, as it allows politicians to deflect blame. Brexit helps to mud the waters even further. Don't forget, we have elections in Germany this year.
As far as I know, the AZ contract is the only one with additional uncensored parts that was published. AZ is in the defensive now. For no real reasons. And over this discussion, in the EU and also in SA it seems, we totally miss the importance of a smooth vaccination campaign. And the lacking preparation thereof.
> “The real problem with AstraZeneca is that it doesn't perform as we expected. (…) Everything suggests that it is almost ineffective on people over 65. "
Anyone who has paid attention to the response around the failure of the EU vaccination program knows this is pretty standard diversionary politics.
The only way vaccinations will work on scale will be to have vaccines that can be handled by every doctors practice. They are vaccinating million sof people already every year, they have the supply chain in place and the people. I for my part am not counting on vaccination centers and central appointment booking.
Key snippet:
Most of the participants in these studies were between 18 and 55 years old. There are not yet enough results in older participants (over 55 years old) to provide a figure for how well the vaccine will work in this group. However, protection is expected, given that an immune response is seen in this age group and based on experience with other vaccines; as there is reliable information on safety in this population, EMA’s scientific experts considered that the vaccine can be used in older adults. More information is expected from ongoing studies, which include a higher proportion of elderly participants.
We can probably all agree with the EMA's assessment that AZ's effectiveness for the elderly is likely but not convincingly demonstrated yet. Based on this it's reasonable for different national EU agencies to give different recommendations for application to the elderly. For instance, in the Netherlands national agency recommends using Pfifer / Moderna for the 65+ and AZ for 65-.
The EU negotiated badly, and AZ used that to fool them. I think AZ deserves some moral blame here as well.
More fun if it turns out the AstraZeneca vaccine is useless.
Why would AZ agree to a contract to guarantee certain deliveries on a brand new vaccine with unproven manufacturing, on a non-profit basis? It doesn't make any sense.
The other thing which isn't mentioned is the UK's deliveries were also cut, probably even more severely than the EU ones. The UK was originally meant to get many tens of millions of doses by the end of 2020, in reality it was far far less.
https://theconversation.com/astrazeneca-dispute-comes-at-a-d...
> AstraZeneca has reduced its projected vaccine rollout to the EU, despite signing a contract to supply millions of doses, citing an issue with a plant in Belgium. It did not, however, cut its supplies to the UK.
The UK negotiated completely independent supply chain that they paid for up front. It isn't comparable.
If the contract really said best effort everywhere, they may have a leg to stand on, since that seems to preclude using different delivery guarantees in other contracts.
Completely unacceptable and unsupportable suggestion.
The EU had absolute clarity on the differing supply chains for differing contracts with AZ. No amount of contract negotiation increase culture yields in vaccine production lines.
What is Macron going to do when he gets loads of this vaccine in Q3? "Never mind that stuff about it not working, please go get vaccinated?". It's Trump level (remember that guy) irresponsibility.
Macron should be piloried for his antivaxxer comments. France has a serious issue with people refusing the vaccine as it is. Not helped by their deliberately complex steps to give it out.