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> initially they planned to cut Canada's deliveries by ~50% for 4 weeks but EU's by a 8% for 2 weeks. This is simply because of different contractual obligatio

> initially they planned to cut Canada's deliveries by ~50% for 4 weeks but EU's by a 8% for 2 weeks. This is simply because of different contractual obligations to the different parties. If I owe you $100 by the end of year, but owe someone else $20 by end of month, I'm going to give full priority to repaying the other person. > I am deeply concerned that EU would simply block exports to Canada to make up for the shortfalls in its share of the vaccines. Unwarranted: they've explicitly said they won't. Lots of articles on your news source of choice. one random example: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/01/28/news/eu-health-official-blasts-slow-vaccine-delivery-canada https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/01/28/news/eu-health-o... As a fellow Canadian, it simply doesn't seem to be a big deal yet. May become one, but whatever.

smnrchrds 6y ago
> This is simply because of different contractual obligations to the different parties I am not so sure. Canada was the 4th country to sign a contract with Pfizer. We were ahead of the EU. The initial statements by the Canadian government about the reduction in Pfizer production capacity was that they expect all countries will be affected similarly, but the next day we learned that Canada will be affected an order of magnitude more that Europe. It's unlikely that the government did not know what their contract said when they made those statements. In retrospect, Pfizer probably calculated that pissing off Canada is preferable to pissing off Europe and acted accordingly. Now we see that Canada accepted the slowdown gracefully, but Europe threw its weight and started changing the rules. Politically, they made the most expedient decision. But it was and is unfair to Canada.
- SECProto 6y ago
  Pfizer has been pretty explicit with their comments that the deliveries will still meet the amount required by the end of quarter. Perhaps the EU has end-of-month targets instead. I'm just not that concerned about it personally. There'll be a political price to pay if it doesn't work out, as well as a contract violation price for the manufacturers. I don't expect I'll be able to get a vaccine until August at the earliest anyway. I wish addressing climate change was covered with the same urgency by media (mainstream, niche, social, all of the above)

smnrchrds 6y ago

> This is simply because of different contractual obligations to the different parties I am not so sure. Canada was the 4th country to sign a contract with Pfizer. We were ahead of the EU. The initial statements by the Canadian government about the reduction in Pfizer production capacity was that they expect all countries will be affected similarly, but the next day we learned that Canada will be affected an order of magnitude more that Europe. It's unlikely that the government did not know what their contract said when they made those statements. In retrospect, Pfizer probably calculated that pissing off Canada is preferable to pissing off Europe and acted accordingly. Now we see that Canada accepted the slowdown gracefully, but Europe threw its weight and started changing the rules. Politically, they made the most expedient decision. But it was and is unfair to Canada.

SECProto 6y ago
Pfizer has been pretty explicit with their comments that the deliveries will still meet the amount required by the end of quarter. Perhaps the EU has end-of-month targets instead. I'm just not that concerned about it personally. There'll be a political price to pay if it doesn't work out, as well as a contract violation price for the manufacturers. I don't expect I'll be able to get a vaccine until August at the earliest anyway. I wish addressing climate change was covered with the same urgency by media (mainstream, niche, social, all of the above)