The counterfactual ‘if UK was still in EU it would have slowed vaccinations’ doesn’t make sense.
Without #Brexit, UK could have (and surely would have):
🙅🏻♂️Said no to joint procurement
👨🔬Emergency-authorised early
But couldn’t have:
Had vaccine deliveries from EU restricted
When you point out UK did both these things last year while under EU rules, some say "but if we werent leaving we'd have been pressured to stay in line"
Who really believes any such pressure would have worked? UK has refused to join EU programs all the time (ex: Schengen & euro)
The EU joint procurement scheme has always been *voluntary*. All EU/EEA countries decided it's best to join it to avoid #VaccineWar.
Once they join, they can't make side deals for vaccines in the program. But UK surely wouldn't have joined in 1st place. ec.europa.eu/health/securit…
Many still believe these 2 UK decisions were the wrong ones.
They enabled an earlier start to vaccinations but opened possibility of #VaccineWar, rushed approval without full data and more costs to taxpayers.
The point is, even as EU member, UK would likely have done the same.
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Details emerging about what happened Friday with the Article 16 screw-up. It’s not looking good for @vonderleyen.
Apparently text was crafted by her close (German) inner circle and sent to commissioners just 30 minutes before they were asked to approve. ft.com/content/417e08…
This has been a constant complaint about VDL’s leadership since she took office 14 months ago
She’s been accused of only listening to her German advisors and not consulting with her team of 26 commissioners
Today she’s reinforced that image by only giving an interview to 🇩🇪 TV
Is this the moment that growing frustration with Von Der Leyen’s leadership bubbles over?
We’ll see. MEPs want to hear from her this week. This isn’t just about the article 26 mistake, it’s about a pattern of behaviour.
BREAKING: The European Commission has adopted a regulation making the export of vaccines subject to an export authorisation.
Companies will need to inform authorities before they export vaccines made in the EU out of the EU.
Press conference happening now.
The vaccine export restriction mechanism is time-limited till the end of March and only covers the 6 vaccines that have been part of EU joint procurement.
"Commitments need to be kept, and contracts are binding," says Health Commissioner @SKyriakidesEU.
"Humanitarian shipments will not be effected," Kyriakides says. The EU's COVAX programme getting vaccines to developing countries will also not be affected.
A thread on conditional authorisation (used by EU) versus emergency use authorisation (used by UK & US) for vaccines - a topic that I think is going to be more explored in the coming days given the AstraZeneca news out of Germany today.
First off: what's the difference?
Each type of vaccine approval comes with pros and cons:
🐇Emergency is faster but it's risky - requires less data and makes govs liable instead of pharma if anything goes wrong.
The 27 national authorities decided EMA should use conditional approval back in October, at a time when the extent of the 2nd wave & new strains wasn't yet known.
The UK & US chose emergency approval - controversial in US at the time because it looked like Trump was rushing it.
I think all of the focus on one % figure in the German media reports about this over the past days obscured the larger point: Germany is not comfortable giving this shot to the only category of people who are receiving it right now.
Given this new development in Germany, I would guess that EU Medicines Agency approval for the #AstraZeneca vaccine tomorrow is now seriously in doubt.
If EMA doesn't approve, does it render the whole #VaccineWar thing suddenly moot?