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Faisal Islam Profile picture
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29 Jan, 9 tweets, 4 min read
Commission has invoked Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol on “averting serious societal difficulties” as regards vaccines:
So it says that NI will be considered an export territory for purposes of vaccine from EU and therefore RoI -
Looks like a land border for eu vaccines on island of Ireland - interesting to see what Dublin thinks about this?
NI First Minister Arlene Foster has described the Article 16 move as an “incredible act of hostility” and “despicable” and urges the PM to use robust measures including Article 16... other SDLP and Alliance MPs have also criticised the Commission’s move
According to RTE, Dublin has indeed raised concerns about the move with VDL...

Confirmed here:
Sources say key players involved in the NI protocol totally blindsided by Commission’s deployment of Article 16 in the vaccine restrictions... v sensitive area given tension over calls to invoke over cross Irish Sea barriers...
Links to the Article 16 EU legal text that I screenshotted aren’t now working... suggests some “movement” as they say... 🤔
All latest on NI - AZ - EU - A16 on what should have been a day of vaccine triumph - with DUP Dep leader, an EU foreign minister, our Pol Ed @nicholaswatt and Diplo Ed @markurban01 & Health Corr @deb_cohen...

Also with @christopherhope & @stefaniebolzen & me

@bbcnewsnight 2245

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More from @faisalislam

Faisal Islam Profile picture
29 Jan
The contract is here:
“Best reasonable efforts”... defined... contract included the UK as EU manufacturing for purposes of a clause seeking to keep manufacture mainly in Europe...
Redacted schedule that refers to UK manufacturing sites.. for both “substance manufacturing” and “product manufacturing”
Read 6 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
28 Jan
First time I’ve looked at these data in a while - 3,140 acute respiratory infection care home outbreaks in England in 4 weeks since weekend post Christmas, reported to PHE - not far off peak 4 weeks April, where was leading indicator of spike in care home mortality 2-3 wks later
Geographical spread in care homes reflects the spread of the virus in community - but also perhaps fact that many of the regions hit now were not hit so hard in first wave. Concern here is that it’s hitting care homes in regions spared in first wave.
See here:
Read 4 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
28 Jan
Different type of vaccine being developed at Scottish factory of a French company - an “inactivated whole virus” - UK task force secured 60m dose preorder in July for €470m with options for 130m more 2022-25, invested in factory. EU finalised first order of 30m this month.
Basically the Government through @katebingham acted like a venture capital fund, funding many vaccine candidates, expensively, across different types of tech, with companies from different countries (at time of some scepticism that a working vaccine could be produced so quickly)
Though despite the fact French Valneva had been funded for its vaccines in general in 2018 by EU’s investment bank, UK funding guaranteed its production in UK (speculative VC style investment) - similarly UK signed deal with Pfizer for German developed/ funded Biontech vaccine
Read 14 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
26 Jan
Extremely interesting iv with AZ chief Soriot:
“contract with UK was signed first and UK, of course, said “you supply us first”, and this is fair enough. vaccine was developed with UK govt, Oxford and with us as well. As soon as we can, we'll help the EU” repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/0…
What is surprised, in a way, is the absence of this type of “you supply us first” arrangement with say Germany and the German firm Biontech, with hundreds of millions in German govt and EU-funding that invented the Pfizer vaccine ...
extremely important piece of context here that AZ is exporting this at cost price, including essentially to developing countries, having been previously more focussed on monoclonal antibody COVID treatments... soriot’s predictions from last April - pretty much spot on:
Read 7 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
22 Jan
Much needed good news from colleague @BBCSimonJack iv with Nissan COO Gupta... tariff free deal means they commit to long term future for Sunderland - & will move battery production for one Leaf model that doesn’t meet electric car rules of origin threshold, to UK, so it does
Vital last gasp negotiation between PM and VDL on this very issue at the last moment before deal was struck - up until then was genuine risk of some tariffs even in a deal - industry now needs significant backing on battery capacity for future, esp given combustion engine bans...
Some quite interesting comments to simon though on essentially anticipation of Nissan winning domestic market share at expense of EU imports... Raises wider questions about whether Govt chooses to lean into some import substitution strategies given extra non tariff barriers...
Read 4 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
20 Jan
Horrible latest numbers just released on UK COVID deaths - 1,820 newly reported today... by date of death that’s 5 confirmed consecutive days above 1000 deaths 10-14 Jan, 10 consecutive days at around 1000 a day 7-16th January ImageImage
sustained “by date” pattern of UK COVID deaths in early January 2021 (7 day avg peak 1039 from 9-15th Jan) now unequivocally worse than in the previous April 2020 peak (7 day peak avg 974, 7-13th April)...(remember this is not excess death measure more comparable internationally) ImageImage
So 1,290 newly reported Covid deaths, or 4,720 in past three days.

By date of death there’s now officially 10 consecutive days of UK Covid deaths at 1000 or higher every day from January 9th to January 18th - significantly above April wave 1 peak Image
Read 6 tweets

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