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Comment by readittwice | Hacker News Reader

No, I've already posted the article that states that the UK signed the contract with AZ in May. There are also other news articles from May 2020 (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/18/coronavirus-astrazeneca-aims...) that prove that the UK already ordered back then.

That's why it was considered "news" when it was reported that one particular contract was signed by the UK one day after the EU. But that's not the full story, since the UK had binding contracts with AZ well before that.

"The link also says they wouldn't export EU manufactured vaccines, except Italy blocked an export to Australia a couple of weeks ago." I haven't seen that claim in the article you linked.

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"He also denied suggestions that AstraZeneca might be selling vaccine doses manufactured in the EU to other parts of the world in order to make a bigger profit."

IMHO that sentence doesn't prove your point that "The link also says they wouldn't export EU manufactured vaccines".

AZ is selling at cost, so they are not making a profit from the vaccine atm. So that statement should be trivially true.

If they are actually selling at cost [citation needed], why would they ship to Australia with undoubtedly higher transport costs?

It is well known that AZ sells the vaccine at cost. E.g. "... is being offered by the drugmaker at cost during the pandemic and at no profit in perpetuity for low-income countries." [1] That's because the vaccine was developed by the Oxford university and Oxford made this a condition. If AZ makes a profit from the vaccine during the pandemic they would break the contract with Oxford.

It seems the cost price differs from country to country because of different production costs and other factors (maybe shipping).

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/astrazeneca-vaccine-cost-hig...

This still doesn't provide an explanation for shipments to Australia, other than for higher profits. Which he explicitly denied doing so.

Your link doesn't say anything about signing contracts.

And press releases saying they are ready to go don't count as signing contracts.

All your links are rooted in AZ press releases, which means nothing.

That article was clearly published in May 2020, I don't assume AZ sneaked that article in. Are you really saying that AZ was faking the press release in May 2020, so that in 2021 they could claim that the UK signed the contract three months before the EU?

Your article from may doesn't say anything about signing contracts, only that they are ready to go.

I've seen the articles mention may, june and august as signing dates of the contract, so clearly there is some 'miscommunication'. And both the may and june date originates from AZ, while the actual date turns out to be august.

There are plenty of articles from May 2020 that all discuss in various words that a deal was struck. If you believe that AZ didn't sign a contract with the UK before Aug 28 then the burden is on you to prove that.

No, there are plenty of articles from which you deduced there was a contract signed by the UK before august.

It's impossible to prove there wasn't a contract signed, it is however possible to prove a contract was signed. Your articles never provided evidence for the date the contract was signed.

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