The E.U. will soon seal its rejection of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine by signing off on the world’s biggest vaccine deal yet, buying up to 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine to last until 2023. The Telegraph has the story.
The vaccines from the U.S. drugmaker and its German partner BioNTech would be delivered over 2021-2023, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a visit to Pfizer’s vaccine plant in Puurs, Belgium.
The agreement would be enough to inoculate the 450 million E.U. population for two years and comes as the bloc seeks to shore up long-term supplies.
This is the third contract agreed by the bloc with the two companies, which have already agreed to supply 600 million doses of the two-dose vaccine this year under two previous contracts.
European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that the E.U. will have enough to inoculate at least 70% of E.U. adults by the end of July.
The E.U. Chief had previously set a goal of late September.
An E.U. official said the supply deal was agreed in principle but that both sides needed a few days to iron out final terms.
“We will conclude in the next days. It will secure the doses necessary to give booster shots to increase immunity,” Ms von der Leyen said at a briefing at the Puurs factory.
Pfizer has scrambled to boost output in recent months at its U.S. and Belgian plants to meet growing demand.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Puurs is expected to have the capacity to produce more than 100 million doses by May.
A new study by Oxford University and the ONS has found that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine reduces Covid infections by 65%. The same is true of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to the study, but many European countries have come to distrust the vaccine because of its link to blood clots (the risk of which has been upgraded in the past two weeks). Thirty three per cent of Danes would refuse to take the AZ vaccine, according to a survey, while in Sicily the refusal rate is said to be closer to 80%. On top of concerns about cases of blood clotting, the European Commission has criticised AstraZeneca for cutting its vaccine deliveries to the bloc and is now preparing legal proceedings against the drugmaker, according to reports. The E.U.’s contract with AZ included 400 million doses of the Covid vaccine, 100 million of which were optional. The bloc, which has tightened its bond with Pfizer, has decided against taking this option up.
The Telegraph’s report is worth reading in full.
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Marvellous!
The Democrats don’t like the British Empire even though they have one of their own!
Badenoch is now third in the Conservative leadership election.
So the Conservatives will be led by another Westminster yes man cardboard cut out.
Reform.
Anyone conservative was always going to be removed from the ‘choice’ – we know that…
She is only parading her ‘conservative’ values to win over the sucker membership vote. And boy oh boy any member left in the Tory party is either a sucker or a wet.
Badenoch would become a cardboard cut out yes lady too. They don’t become leader without taking the Danegeld.
The tail end of the left wing Biden administration (likely run by Obama for most of the past 4 years) just doesn’t care. Most politicians have short time horizons.
Aside from the security issue, they were ours and had never been meaningfully Mauritian. There might be minerals in their territorial area.
We know Mauritius cannot protect and secure these islands over 2000 miles.
Whoever comes at the top heap won’t be relevant for long. The Tories haven’t learned anything over the last few months and until they unite with a common purpoe they are doomed.
What is all this tosh about the “special relationship”? American foreign policy is directed at protecting the interests of the United States – and no one else. In other words the “special relationship” is a childish delusion peddled by adults who ought to know better.
It is where the UK bends over and the US decides how far it will shaft us.
You are absolutely correct. How many countries and politicians have been destroyed by this fallacy of a special relationship with Washington? Politicians delude themselves and fall into this hole because of their need and quest to be close to power. Bliar is a good example.
Next on the list will be Gibraltar …. demonstrating our continuing vassal status to the EU.
This is what happens when you have a treacherous parcel o’ rogues running a nation …… the kind we’ve had since the 1960s.
“… the country’s government sold the islands to Britain for a tidy sum.”
So we can get that back with interest and allowance for inflation and pay the pensioners’ Winter fuel allowance – or buy Free Gear Keir a new suit.
None of these shenanigans will get a single Chagos Islander back to their islands though, at least they won’t be our problem anymore.
Of course if the Yanks did tell Liebour to hand over the Islands lets hope Mauritius doesn’t now ask them to leave too but if they do I hope the yanks will have the good sense to totally and utterly demolish all infrastructure, and flood with concrete anything underground.