9 ms·

Is Britain doing better than EU? I know nothing but that seems like an easy comparison, right?

toyg 6y ago
A better comparison is with US, China, or Russia. And yes, it doesn't look very good. The rollout has been slow for a number of reasons, from actual resistance in some countries to the well-publicised shenanigans with manufacturers. Also, Europeans export a significant portion of their vaccine production, unlike others.
philjohn 6y ago
Well, the UK is prioritising getting as many people a first dose as possible, so the number "fully" vaccinated in the UK lags behind the EU. Jury is still somewhat out about which method is better, and who will finish first. I'd put money on both reaching 70% of eligible people vaccinated with both doses around the same time.
- toyg 6y ago
  It's even more complex than that, since some countries have now switched to UK-like intervals between doses (11 weeks)... but not all. And there are a bunch of country-specific issues too. This is one of those situations where "EU" as a concept is a bit of an overgeneralization for 27 loosely-coordinating countries.
- jariel 6y ago
  Yes, but the UK is so far ahead with jabs/person that it's going to make a the bigger difference. The volume of jabs will dictate the outcome more than the 1-now-1-much-later or 1-now-1-soon strategies.
dragontamer 6y ago
Britain is one of the fastest vaccinating countries in the world. Maybe THE fastest (they're over 50% adults vaccinated already), ignoring smaller countries like Israel who don't have to worry about scale quite as msuch. Britain erred on the side of faster rollout: many countries criticize them for rushing AZ's vaccine approval process actually. Because Britain somewhat rushed the vaccine rollout, its probably not a fair comparison to other countries. USA vs EU is probably a better comparison (but maybe not, because USA has a *dominating* industrial base and can physically make more things than most other countries)
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Most western countries could have easily afforded to build their own factories but they cheapened out and didn’t want to spend the 10 million for a one off factory. That’s a lot harder to defend than throwing 100 million a day out of the window on lockdowns.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    The factories needed to be set up last year, before the vaccines were approved. IIRC, there were well over 20+ vaccines in the USA alone that were being developed. I dunno about other countries... it turned out that the mRNA (Pfizer / Moderna) and adenovirus (J&J / AstraZeneca) seem to have been the fastest at production. Everyone who spent $Millions on other vaccines are still waiting for those tests to finish. Only if you were lucky enough to pick Pfizer / Moderna / AZ / J&J are you actually winning in the vaccine race right now. At this point, its looking like if you bet on the wrong vaccine, you lost your entire investment. ------------- USA spent billions on building "all the above". We have millions of AZ-doses sitting on the shelves, waiting for final approval (final tests just finished this past week). UK ordered 4-doses per person (when only 2-doses are needed, and even though its not known if children can safely take the vaccine yet). That's another reason why UK is so fast: they aggressively bought extra vaccines at an extreme rate. UK plans to either sell, or donate, those extra vaccines later on. By buying so much extra vaccine, UK ensured that they are at the front of the line when it comes to vaccine supply from the various companies.
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      Canada ordered 9.6 doses per person, and we're substantially behind the US/UK.
      - bluGill 6y ago
        Yeah, six months ago I thought Canada would do best because they ordered the most choices. In hindsight I now know they should have ordered less and instead invested in a supply chain for what they ordered. It would have been more of a gamble though. I wonder if they could have built a MRNA plant that could flex to moderna or Pfizer, and similar for the other 4 vaccine technologies (that I can't spell), even though only two are significant so far. (With promising futures for the others )
tinus_hn 6y ago
Britain is almost halfway done vaccinating all of the adult population. It’s not in the same league as the EU.
- celticninja 6y ago
  almost 50% have had the first dose, is different to halfway done vaccinating the adult population. As I understand the figures, only 2 million have had the second dose.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    The difference in benefit between one and two doses is pretty small in absolute terms. Props to the UK for prioritizing that first dose to maximize public health (almost makes up for bumbling earlier parts of the COVID-19 response). Second, many of the people vaccinated in the UK are getting single-dose vaccines, not Moderna or Pfizer/Bio.
    - markus92 6y ago
      Source on the UK using single dose vaccines? Afaik the only one is the J&J one of which not a single dose has been delivered to the UK so far.
      - evanb 6y ago
        They’re not using single-dose vaccines. But they are prioritizing (getting the first dose into as many people as possible) over (getting everybody who had the first dose their second dose the exact number of days later).
    - cheradenine_uk 6y ago
      Another example where the "precautionary approach" turned out to be the wrong one - first doses first was self-evidently the way to go if you read the data that came out of the clinical trials. Personally, as a (broadly) pro-european UK citizen - there's a _moral_ case that, sometime soon, we should make the case for exporting doses now we've covered off the most vulnerable in our own country. A dead person is a dead person. And I'm _utterly dismayed_ that the EU's behaviour has obliterated any chance of that getting off square 1. Johnson is a populist - any move to restrict contractually-entitled exports by the EU will have the red-top press screaming blue murder and will back him into a corner. I'd fully expect a destructive spiral from there on out - starting with him blocking PZ precursor chemicals being shipped to the EU from Yorkshire. We should be shifting the conversation to "haven't we done well; now is the time to help our friends and neighbors".
chimeracoder 6y ago
In addition to everything else mentioned, the UK is also prioritizing first-doses while delaying the second dose far later than recommended (second dose at 12 weeks, instead of 3-4 weeks)[0]. That's on top of administering first doses without keeping a complete stockpile for second doses (ie, they are betting that it will be relatively easy to obtain a supply of second doses when the time comes). So yes, the UK is far ahead of most other countries in first doses administered, but they're also going off-book for their vaccination protocol in a lot of ways that make it a bad point of comparison for other countries which are following clinical recommendations more closely. [0] There's some clinical evidence in support of the 12-week gap for the AstraZeneca vaccine, though the UK made this decision before that study had been released, and there is not yet analogous data to support the efficacy of a 12-week period for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which the UK is also administering on a 12-week gap.
- orangecat 6y ago
  Both theory and data overwhelmingly support delaying second doses in favor of getting first doses to more people, e.g. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/02/first-doses-first-the-data-is-arriving.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/02/fi.... Notably, the "recommended" 3 week delay wasn't the result of determining the medically optimal interval; it was chosen to reduce the time needed for vaccine trials.
- mprovost 6y ago
  The UK has been vaccinating for more than 12 weeks now and the evidence shows that people aren't getting infected in that time period once they've had their first dose.
jlouis 6y ago
Yes. UK and US have both had some export regulations on vaccines, which aren't present in EU. So the current flow of available doses isn't really a free market in the usual sense. There are other factors than dose availability though. Putting vaccines into people isn't easy to do on a large scale in a short time window. Vaccine programmes are usually running with a much larger window, with vaccines that doesn't require extreme cold temperatures. UK seems better prepared for this than many of the EU-bloc's countries. The other part of the question however is: "Severely lags behind what?". Even with a "slow" rollout, EU countries in general are better off than many other countries in the world. It isn't the case they are trying to keep up with the pack in general, as they are well positioned. It's more that there are a few countries who are doing extremely well on a quick rollout.
- mattmanser 6y ago
  There's no export restrictions in the UK, they just ordered vaccines earlier and in bigger bulk than the EU (comparatively). One of the many spats about this between the EU and the UK was when an EU functionary incorrectly claimed the UK had export controls and they had to back track[1]. As far as I know, the EU gambled on a French vaccine that unfortunately failed, then ordered other vaccines much later than everyone else. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/6d28903d-3723-45cc-878a-21e1f2d39493 https://www.ft.com/content/6d28903d-3723-45cc-878a-21e1f2d39...
  - thefounder 6y ago
    I think you are wrong. UK gov blocked exports to the EU. "Two factories in Britain run by Oxford Biomedica and Cobra Biologics are also listed as suppliers to the EU in the contract with AstraZeneca, but no vaccine has so far been shipped from Britain to the EU, despite Brussels' earlier requests." "AstraZeneca told EU officials that the UK is using a clause in its supply contract that prevents export of its vaccines until the British market is fully served, EU officials said." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-uk-idUSKBN2BD0RZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-uk-...
    - 6y ago
pfortuny 6y ago
More or less infinitely better, yes.

toyg 6y ago

A better comparison is with US, China, or Russia. And yes, it doesn't look very good. The rollout has been slow for a number of reasons, from actual resistance in some countries to the well-publicised shenanigans with manufacturers. Also, Europeans export a significant portion of their vaccine production, unlike others.

philjohn 6y ago

Well, the UK is prioritising getting as many people a first dose as possible, so the number "fully" vaccinated in the UK lags behind the EU. Jury is still somewhat out about which method is better, and who will finish first. I'd put money on both reaching 70% of eligible people vaccinated with both doses around the same time.

toyg 6y ago
It's even more complex than that, since some countries have now switched to UK-like intervals between doses (11 weeks)... but not all. And there are a bunch of country-specific issues too. This is one of those situations where "EU" as a concept is a bit of an overgeneralization for 27 loosely-coordinating countries.
jariel 6y ago
Yes, but the UK is so far ahead with jabs/person that it's going to make a the bigger difference. The volume of jabs will dictate the outcome more than the 1-now-1-much-later or 1-now-1-soon strategies.

dragontamer 6y ago

Britain is one of the fastest vaccinating countries in the world. Maybe THE fastest (they're over 50% adults vaccinated already), ignoring smaller countries like Israel who don't have to worry about scale quite as msuch. Britain erred on the side of faster rollout: many countries criticize them for rushing AZ's vaccine approval process actually. Because Britain somewhat rushed the vaccine rollout, its probably not a fair comparison to other countries. USA vs EU is probably a better comparison (but maybe not, because USA has a *dominating* industrial base and can physically make more things than most other countries)

tinus_hn 6y ago
Most western countries could have easily afforded to build their own factories but they cheapened out and didn’t want to spend the 10 million for a one off factory. That’s a lot harder to defend than throwing 100 million a day out of the window on lockdowns.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  The factories needed to be set up last year, before the vaccines were approved. IIRC, there were well over 20+ vaccines in the USA alone that were being developed. I dunno about other countries... it turned out that the mRNA (Pfizer / Moderna) and adenovirus (J&J / AstraZeneca) seem to have been the fastest at production. Everyone who spent $Millions on other vaccines are still waiting for those tests to finish. Only if you were lucky enough to pick Pfizer / Moderna / AZ / J&J are you actually winning in the vaccine race right now. At this point, its looking like if you bet on the wrong vaccine, you lost your entire investment. ------------- USA spent billions on building "all the above". We have millions of AZ-doses sitting on the shelves, waiting for final approval (final tests just finished this past week). UK ordered 4-doses per person (when only 2-doses are needed, and even though its not known if children can safely take the vaccine yet). That's another reason why UK is so fast: they aggressively bought extra vaccines at an extreme rate. UK plans to either sell, or donate, those extra vaccines later on. By buying so much extra vaccine, UK ensured that they are at the front of the line when it comes to vaccine supply from the various companies.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    Canada ordered 9.6 doses per person, and we're substantially behind the US/UK.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Yeah, six months ago I thought Canada would do best because they ordered the most choices. In hindsight I now know they should have ordered less and instead invested in a supply chain for what they ordered. It would have been more of a gamble though. I wonder if they could have built a MRNA plant that could flex to moderna or Pfizer, and similar for the other 4 vaccine technologies (that I can't spell), even though only two are significant so far. (With promising futures for the others )

tinus_hn 6y ago

Britain is almost halfway done vaccinating all of the adult population. It’s not in the same league as the EU.

celticninja 6y ago
almost 50% have had the first dose, is different to halfway done vaccinating the adult population. As I understand the figures, only 2 million have had the second dose.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  The difference in benefit between one and two doses is pretty small in absolute terms. Props to the UK for prioritizing that first dose to maximize public health (almost makes up for bumbling earlier parts of the COVID-19 response). Second, many of the people vaccinated in the UK are getting single-dose vaccines, not Moderna or Pfizer/Bio.
  - markus92 6y ago
    Source on the UK using single dose vaccines? Afaik the only one is the J&J one of which not a single dose has been delivered to the UK so far.
    - evanb 6y ago
      They’re not using single-dose vaccines. But they are prioritizing (getting the first dose into as many people as possible) over (getting everybody who had the first dose their second dose the exact number of days later).
  - cheradenine_uk 6y ago
    Another example where the "precautionary approach" turned out to be the wrong one - first doses first was self-evidently the way to go if you read the data that came out of the clinical trials. Personally, as a (broadly) pro-european UK citizen - there's a _moral_ case that, sometime soon, we should make the case for exporting doses now we've covered off the most vulnerable in our own country. A dead person is a dead person. And I'm _utterly dismayed_ that the EU's behaviour has obliterated any chance of that getting off square 1. Johnson is a populist - any move to restrict contractually-entitled exports by the EU will have the red-top press screaming blue murder and will back him into a corner. I'd fully expect a destructive spiral from there on out - starting with him blocking PZ precursor chemicals being shipped to the EU from Yorkshire. We should be shifting the conversation to "haven't we done well; now is the time to help our friends and neighbors".

chimeracoder 6y ago

In addition to everything else mentioned, the UK is also prioritizing first-doses while delaying the second dose far later than recommended (second dose at 12 weeks, instead of 3-4 weeks)[0]. That's on top of administering first doses without keeping a complete stockpile for second doses (ie, they are betting that it will be relatively easy to obtain a supply of second doses when the time comes). So yes, the UK is far ahead of most other countries in first doses administered, but they're also going off-book for their vaccination protocol in a lot of ways that make it a bad point of comparison for other countries which are following clinical recommendations more closely. [0] There's some clinical evidence in support of the 12-week gap for the AstraZeneca vaccine, though the UK made this decision before that study had been released, and there is not yet analogous data to support the efficacy of a 12-week period for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which the UK is also administering on a 12-week gap.

orangecat 6y ago
Both theory and data overwhelmingly support delaying second doses in favor of getting first doses to more people, e.g. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/02/first-doses-first-the-data-is-arriving.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/02/fi.... Notably, the "recommended" 3 week delay wasn't the result of determining the medically optimal interval; it was chosen to reduce the time needed for vaccine trials.
mprovost 6y ago
The UK has been vaccinating for more than 12 weeks now and the evidence shows that people aren't getting infected in that time period once they've had their first dose.

jlouis 6y ago

Yes. UK and US have both had some export regulations on vaccines, which aren't present in EU. So the current flow of available doses isn't really a free market in the usual sense. There are other factors than dose availability though. Putting vaccines into people isn't easy to do on a large scale in a short time window. Vaccine programmes are usually running with a much larger window, with vaccines that doesn't require extreme cold temperatures. UK seems better prepared for this than many of the EU-bloc's countries. The other part of the question however is: "Severely lags behind what?". Even with a "slow" rollout, EU countries in general are better off than many other countries in the world. It isn't the case they are trying to keep up with the pack in general, as they are well positioned. It's more that there are a few countries who are doing extremely well on a quick rollout.

mattmanser 6y ago
There's no export restrictions in the UK, they just ordered vaccines earlier and in bigger bulk than the EU (comparatively). One of the many spats about this between the EU and the UK was when an EU functionary incorrectly claimed the UK had export controls and they had to back track[1]. As far as I know, the EU gambled on a French vaccine that unfortunately failed, then ordered other vaccines much later than everyone else. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/6d28903d-3723-45cc-878a-21e1f2d39493 https://www.ft.com/content/6d28903d-3723-45cc-878a-21e1f2d39...
- thefounder 6y ago
  I think you are wrong. UK gov blocked exports to the EU. "Two factories in Britain run by Oxford Biomedica and Cobra Biologics are also listed as suppliers to the EU in the contract with AstraZeneca, but no vaccine has so far been shipped from Britain to the EU, despite Brussels' earlier requests." "AstraZeneca told EU officials that the UK is using a clause in its supply contract that prevents export of its vaccines until the British market is fully served, EU officials said." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-uk-idUSKBN2BD0RZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-uk-...
  - 6y ago

pfortuny 6y ago

More or less infinitely better, yes.