Hacker News Reader

Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

Most of Europe was much slower to approve vaccines than the US and UK. Because of that, I've assumed since the first approvals in December that Europe would lag. Once the US, UK and others said "hey, we're ready to buy all the vaccines, send us what you'e got", what did we expect would happen? I don't know why Europe lagged on the approvals, but it seems obvious that would also lead to a lag in rollout.

View on HN

The FDA has yet to approve AstraZeneca's vaccine while the EU approved it back in January. The US has a stockpile of 40million doses which are not being used until approval arrives while European vaccination rates are limited by vaccine supply.

Approval speed has nothing to do with it.

The US should allow AstraZeneca to be used on volunteers in other nations, as long as it's not under coercion. The possible blot-clot issue is small, if any. Thus, volunteers is a decent compromise, rather than let it sit in storage.

The US is currently shipping AZ to Canada and Mexico

The US trial results just came out and it looks good. They will submit it for review to the FDA soon.

I agree with that. However, Martin Selmayr (Secretary-General of the European Commission) recently explained on TV that the slower approval was the reason that the EU is lagging behind the US in vaccations. Well, obviously that slower approval was for "more safety" according to him.

That explanation doesn't make a whole lot of sense since the delay was only a few weeks for Biontech/Pfizer or Moderna. As you mentioned, AZ is not even approved in the US. Europe would need to vaccinate around 50M people in a few weeks.

EU politicans know that the EU has failed at procurement. They now try to cover that up by blaming AZ and explaining delays with additional safety measures.

Selmayr hasn't been the Secretary-General of COM for two years.

Oh right, that's true. Sorry. He is now still a European civil servant though. In my defense, I quickly googled his name and that's what popped out first. On TV was announced as "spokesperson of the European Commission", so I thought that was his official job title.

I find the information in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26544947 credible, and they indicate that approval is not the major issue. Instead, the EU's contracts with the pharma companies cannot be met, because the US and UK legislated/contracted to bind local production to local use, with the UK even specifically requiring/strongly encouraging Oxford to use a UK pharma company (instead of a US one) in order to ensure they could bind local production to local use.

Exactly. We in the EU are supply limited. In Austria, the first Pfizer shot was given before Christmas, and we are still at only 4% fully immunized (12% got at least one shot). We are even continuing to vaccinate while other countries have stopped AZ because of the recently reported potential issues - still doesn’t move the needle much.

The UK (and the US) used emergency provisions to grant temporary approvals early. The EU pretty much followed the normal procedure but with an accelerated schedule.

The EU branded the UK's emergency approval "reckless".

Really AZ vaccine is not even approved in the USA...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com