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A bright spot of Brexit is that the UK negotiated a much more successful vaccine acquisition program, which spared them from a lot of Covid deaths.
by thehappypm 5y ago
A bright spot of Brexit is that the UK negotiated a much more successful vaccine acquisition program, which spared them from a lot of Covid deaths.
- pjc50 5y agoI've yet to see an explanation of how this would have been impossible while in the EU. UK medical approval is through NICE, and purchasing through the NHS (and devolved NHS organisations!)
- maxehmookau 5y agoIndeed, this argument is incorrect. The UK could've done exactly what it did whilst an EU member.
- thehappypm 5y agoThen why did no EU members do it?
- tolien 5y agoThey did - Hungary bought and deployed the Sinopharm and Sputnik V vaccines which weren't EMA-approved [1], later also taking CoviShield (the AstraZeneca vaccine but manufactured in India) and CanSino. Why no other countries did it? Who knows. Maybe they thought they were already paying into the EU-wide scheme so why bother? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Hungary#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Hungar...
- thehappypm 5y agoOkay, one member state did it.
- tolien 5y agoThat's more than no EU states? shrug https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52380823 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52380823 > Hungary has been using Russia's Sputnik vaccine for months and and Slovakia has also bought doses of it. > Germany said in April it would begin talks to secure supplies of the Russian vaccine and Austria said it would buy one million doses, but only once the EU's medicines agency approves the jab for use in the EU. > The Czech Republic and Poland have entered talks with both Russia and China. So that's Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland - that would be 5 states, ~20%.
- throwaway84248 5y ago> I've yet to see an explanation of how this would have been impossible while in the EU. So the benefit of being in the EU is that they're shit at basics like vaccinating people to stop them dying, but it's ok as at least they'll let you avoid taking part in that since you know they're going to be shit?
- kergonath 5y agoYou're a grown up country and are supposedly able to take care of public health. The EU is a helping hand on these issues, and nobody said that you could not get vaccines because of the EU. The EU is not responsible for a country's cock ups.
- toyg 5y agoIt would have been slightly harder from a political perspective. But yes, it could have been done. Ironically, a non-brexited UK government opposing the single-procurement EU program would have probably forced more EU countries to go alone. On practical matters, it's much easier to sabotage anything when you're inside the building, rather than outside.
- thehappypm 5y agoBrexit, at the least, was a forcing function for the UK to go it alone. Not being able to rely on the EU for vaccines they made up their own strategy -- and it was superior.
- thehappypm 5y agoThen why was the UK head-and-shoulders better than any other member of the EU?
- maxehmookau 5y agoDefine better? Our success at procuring vaccines was, at best, dumb luck. If we had any idea what we were doing as a country, our death rate wouldn't have been so high and perhaps we wouldn't have needed to be so desperate for vaccines. It's like setting yourself on fire and then being really proud of yourself when you manage to find a fire extinguisher.