Thread by @jonworth

Let's try a little counterfactual thread

The critique from plenty of people in 🇪🇺 and 🇬🇧 has been 🇪🇺 got its vaccines strategy *wrong*

So if it were wrong, what should it have done better?

First BioNTech/Pfizer orders and approval

🇬🇧 approved 3 weeks before 🇪🇺, and received a solid early order (shipped from Puurs 🇧🇪)

🇬🇧 signed contract with Pfizer/BioNTech 4 months before 🇪🇺, but EIB and 🇩🇪 provided funding, 🇬🇧 govt did not

BioNTech has also stated that more public funding would have not helped it scale up faster

Also looking forward, with Marburg 🇩🇪, Frankfurt 🇩🇪 due on stream in a couple of months, and lipids from Hanau 🇩🇪 (Evonik) to complete the 🇪🇺-based supply chain, this looks solid now

What could 🇪🇺 have done better?

*Perhaps* approved earlier
*Perhaps* ordered earlier, so as to have secured more doses in Q1 - but before Puurs upgrade total doses were limited overall

What about AstraZeneca?

🇬🇧 approved 4 weeks ahead of 🇪🇺, but due to the thin data available there was perhaps good reason for caution here. And what has happened since has borne this out

Extent of AZ having an exclusive supply arrangement with 🇬🇧 hasn't been definitively answered, but given 🇬🇧 has AZ production of 6m AZ doses/month, even were that not the case, production from 🇬🇧 would not have made up the shortfall

The crux: AZ projected 100m doses for Q1 to 🇪🇺 and delivered 31m. Had that not been the case, vaccine roll out in 🇪🇺 would have been further along

The mystery of the Halix plant contributes to this - we still don't know what's up there

What could 🇪🇺 have done to improve this in 2021 until now? Pretty much nothing, as the news of the shortfall came too late (22 Jan)

What about Moderna?

🇪🇺 has a rather small order of it (as does 🇬🇧 for that matter) and it has not been central to roll out for either

Johnson & Johnson?

This is a harder one to unpick. 🇪🇺 realised in January or February that the J&J plan to manufacture in Leiden 🇳🇱 and bottle in 🇺🇸 would lead to doses getting stuck in 🇺🇸, so sorted a supply chain in 🇩🇪🇪🇸 instead

Had 🇪🇺 been alert to this danger sooner - in autumn rather than in early 2021 - it's possible there might be a little more J&J on stream already now

So - in summary - even *if* 🇪🇺 had done pretty much everything in its control right, it would have had a little more Pfizer/BioNTech sooner (up to 20m doses) and perhaps some more J&J (no more than 10m)

Given an EU adult population of 330m or so, that'd still mean the vaccination supply in 🇪🇺 would not have been significantly better than it is now

Are there other problems?

Yes, notably roll out - looking at the rates at which vaccines have been going into arms, 🇬🇧's NHS did very well. But likewise so have some EU Member States like 🇩🇰. But 🇪🇺 *itself* is not responsible for getting doses into arms

There is also the other aspect of a counter-factual: if 🇪🇺 had not handled procurement jointly, vaccine supply would vary wildly between Member States, leaving poorer states and those without their own supply suffering. Doing this jointly made sense

So, to conclude:
Was this done perfectly? NO
Were there errors? YES
How much better would vaccine supply be in EU be in a best-case? A LITTLE

Let's keep the doomsday takes in perspective please!

/ends