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This might just be the straw that broke the camels back. As far as I remember the contracts the EU signed turned out to be incredibly one sided, with deliveries

by josefx 6y ago

This might just be the straw that broke the camels back. As far as I remember the contracts the EU signed turned out to be incredibly one sided, with deliveries getting cut down when someone found out that more dosages could be extracted, no hard delivery requirements leading to constant shortages, etc. . Not getting out of that mess when alternatives exist seems like a bad idea.

makomk 6y ago
There were no hard delivery requirements in any of AstraZeneca's contracts because they didn't have any way to guarantee how much they could deliver - the contract was literally to build the full-scale production lines, and they had no idea of the yield until those lines were actually built because messy biological processes are involved. The big problems with the EU's AZ purchase is that they bought less of it relative to their population than the UK (so had a commensurately reduced amount of production capacity allocated to them), signed the contract later (meaning less time to fix yield issues), and completely failed to grasp that signing a "best effort" contract for X units of a never-mass-produced vaccine on timescale Y didn't guarantee they'd be delivered on time. Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected by now in the initial contract and is more dependent on it than the EU, but you wouldn't even know there was a problem because the publicly-announced schedule was based on actual production numbers - and the UK contract had clauses with teeth to make sure AZ provided the information needed to make that possible. Not only that, the initial plans were ambitious enough that even after the main vaccine supplier underperformed hugely, the UK still ended up ahead of the EU despite most of their vaccines coming from suppliers who did perform as expected.
- josefx 6y ago
  What kind of "best effort" is signing five more delivery contracts when you aren't even sure that you can get the first few done? > Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected So just how far behind the expected production is AZ? The UK only got a third, the EU is months behind schedule and half a dozen other countries are just around the corner waiting to have their contracts fulfilled. > and the UK contract had clauses with teeth Yeah, that would require halfway competent politicians, not something you find in the EU.
petre 6y ago
This is very likely a political decision. AZ has not honoured their "best effort" contract obligations, the company priortized UK deliveries to honour their other contract and Western Europeans are reluctant to take it because it's less well tolerated than mRNA vaccines and now the very rare blood clot issues. It's too bad, because vaccination rollouts are well behind schedule with less than 10% or so of the EU population vaccinated, while the UK has vaccinated almost everyone under 50 and at risk groups and are out of lockdown. Germany by contrast is imposing additional lockdown measures. I got my first AZ shot it and I'm thankful it exists and really hope it works against the new variants. Maybe this is a chance for poorer countries like Ukraine, Moldova, the former Yugoslav republics and Albania to get their citizens vaccinated. Western Europe should probably donate part of their stocks to these countries through the Covax mechanism instead of letting it go to waste.
- vanattab 6y ago
  What do you mean "first AZ" shot? The AZ vaccine is "one and done" is it not?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    No, AZ is two-dose, J&J is one-and-done.
  - ssdspoimdsjvv 6y ago
    No, that's J&J.
- morsch 6y ago
  less than 10% or so of the EU population vaccinated Around 16% if you count first dose vaccinations (which evidently you do). Doesn't change your major point, though. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&minPopulationFilter=1000000&time=276..latest&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&hideControls=true&Metric=People+vaccinated&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=GBR~European+Union https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

by josefx 6y ago

makomk 6y ago

There were no hard delivery requirements in any of AstraZeneca's contracts because they didn't have any way to guarantee how much they could deliver - the contract was literally to build the full-scale production lines, and they had no idea of the yield until those lines were actually built because messy biological processes are involved. The big problems with the EU's AZ purchase is that they bought less of it relative to their population than the UK (so had a commensurately reduced amount of production capacity allocated to them), signed the contract later (meaning less time to fix yield issues), and completely failed to grasp that signing a "best effort" contract for X units of a never-mass-produced vaccine on timescale Y didn't guarantee they'd be delivered on time. Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected by now in the initial contract and is more dependent on it than the EU, but you wouldn't even know there was a problem because the publicly-announced schedule was based on actual production numbers - and the UK contract had clauses with teeth to make sure AZ provided the information needed to make that possible. Not only that, the initial plans were ambitious enough that even after the main vaccine supplier underperformed hugely, the UK still ended up ahead of the EU despite most of their vaccines coming from suppliers who did perform as expected.

josefx 6y ago
What kind of "best effort" is signing five more delivery contracts when you aren't even sure that you can get the first few done? > Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected So just how far behind the expected production is AZ? The UK only got a third, the EU is months behind schedule and half a dozen other countries are just around the corner waiting to have their contracts fulfilled. > and the UK contract had clauses with teeth Yeah, that would require halfway competent politicians, not something you find in the EU.

petre 6y ago

This is very likely a political decision. AZ has not honoured their "best effort" contract obligations, the company priortized UK deliveries to honour their other contract and Western Europeans are reluctant to take it because it's less well tolerated than mRNA vaccines and now the very rare blood clot issues. It's too bad, because vaccination rollouts are well behind schedule with less than 10% or so of the EU population vaccinated, while the UK has vaccinated almost everyone under 50 and at risk groups and are out of lockdown. Germany by contrast is imposing additional lockdown measures. I got my first AZ shot it and I'm thankful it exists and really hope it works against the new variants. Maybe this is a chance for poorer countries like Ukraine, Moldova, the former Yugoslav republics and Albania to get their citizens vaccinated. Western Europe should probably donate part of their stocks to these countries through the Covax mechanism instead of letting it go to waste.

vanattab 6y ago
What do you mean "first AZ" shot? The AZ vaccine is "one and done" is it not?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  No, AZ is two-dose, J&J is one-and-done.
- ssdspoimdsjvv 6y ago
  No, that's J&J.
morsch 6y ago
less than 10% or so of the EU population vaccinated Around 16% if you count first dose vaccinations (which evidently you do). Doesn't change your major point, though. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&minPopulationFilter=1000000&time=276..latest&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&hideControls=true&Metric=People+vaccinated&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=GBR~European+Union https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...