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Comment by goddess33 | Hacker News Reader

Right about USA. Wrong about UK.

USA has effectively banned export. UK signed a better deal (https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-...), three months earlier, and as a result all AZ vaccine produced domestically in the UK is going to UK Citizens, and they are higher up the queue for AZ product manufactured in the EU. This produces the same effect as an export ban (i.e. domestic production used entirely by country), but is really just the result of competent procurement.

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_...

EU shat the bed by penny pinching. Don't paint incompetence as "humanitarian efforts"

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The EU shat the bed by not banning all exports just like the US did. It's insane to me that the EU allowed 41 million vaccine doses produced INSIDE the EU to be exported to other countries while Europeans are dying and in lockdown.

> by not banning all exports just like the US did

and of course the UK did as well, as the previous poster kindly pointed out:

> This produces the same effect as an export ban

How exactly you achieve being an egotistical sociopath seems a secondary concern.

Now of course both the US and the UK were in extremely dire straits at the tine, with by far the worst outcomes. So I guess that behavior is at least somewhat understandable when you have your back against the wall. Doesn't really make it any better, though.

Is a government securing vaccines for their population "egotistic and sociopathic"

All of the mentioned actors are egotistical sociopaths in your example, as the EU is not talking about equitable access, only access for its own citizens.

If you care about equitable access you should be praising the UK, and in particular Oxford, for making its vaccine available at cost, and for having dedicated supply chains already established for poorer nations.

There's still plenty to criticise, but the current framing demonstrates the egocentrism of all of the actors.

Hmm...the EU has exported 50% of its vaccine production.

The UK: 0%

The US: 0% until a few days ago.

And ordered 100% more than needed for the EU in order to supply other nations with that. The UK did the same so.

Except that the EU isn't getting the doses it ordered, and the shortfall is significant, and it has actually exported a significant chunk.

Whereas the UK is getting the doses it ordered, at the EU's expense, and has not actually exported any.

So.

Not exactly the same.

The U.K. is also experiencing a significant shortfall in doses compared to those that were projected to be delivered by AZ. Production yields have been lower across the board according to Oxford researchers involved in the scale up, and several delivery milestones were missed for the U.K.

This is a very narrow view. The U.K. has made sure there are international supply chains to distribute the Oxford vaccine, and far more of that is being supplied internationally than the entirety of doses exported from the EU.

I think your 50% figure is also too high, though it is a high proportion, but these doses are primarily going to wealthy countries.

If the EU were asking for U.K. doses to be routed to other (particularly poorer) countries I would be sympathetic to the position, but this spat is about getting the EU doses, not about equitable access.

It would be insane to hold this necessary vaccine back from the world just to serve egoistic purposes. Just because the EU has good production infrastructure should not make them the “winner“ in some world wide “vaxing race“

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