The EU are on a collision course with the UK over vaccines.

The UK (and others) have a legal contract with a COMPANY not the EU!

UvdL said the EU “had received 88m vaccines from its factories since December”

She thinks the factories all belong to the EU. Newsflash - they don’t! They’re owned by the companies that built them, and that have signed contracts saying where doses are to be sent. Ripping up legal contracts to prevent exports is definitely a hostile act....

I’m saddened it’s come to this as I have a couple of friends in Greece and lots in Spain who are in their late seventies and they haven’t been offered their first jab yet.

Me too Pantglas my friend & neighbour in Malaga rang me this afternoon. No sign of any vaccine appointment there. She is 85y and her friend is 83y.

The Eu agreed a deal with AZ for 120 million vaccine doses and AZ now only want to deliver something like 30 million. That is the basis of the problem I believe. There were several discussions about it on TV yesterday.
We had our first doses today of the Pfizer vaccine - we had to go to our nearest hospital. Our second dose is due in one month as recommended by the manufacturers.
There were retired doctors and nurses working alongside younger people organising the delivery. The staff have been vaccinated with the AZ vaccine.

Friends and acquaintances in France are despairing.

We have had to wait about six weeks here in France - there also seem to be different methods of getting appointments for the vaccine. We managed to be added to the hospitals waiting list and were called about ten days ago and given both appointments. I have seen reports that some vaccine centres are refusing to do people who have not got the second appointment date.
The other news here is how the current virus is far more dangerous to children - reports of them dying.

I really don't know whether to be amused, outraged or saddened by the EU's behaviour.

Probably saddened, as the people of Europe are suffering because of the EU.

As an English person I am very sad that the people in the UK will not help older or sick people in the EU or other places.

mokryna

As an English person I am very sad that the people in the UK will not help older or sick people in the EU or other places.

As a human being I feel very sad that people running the EU will not help older or sick people in the EU or other places....

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I thought I’d look into this in a bit more detail. The EU population is 446 million, with 27.9% over 65 according to Wikipedia, so there are approximately 160 million of them. The UK has vaccinated 31m over 50s with one dose, of which 2.8m have had two doses so far. The % fully vaccinated in the UK is similar to France, Germany and Italy at about 4% of the population. There is a disparity in vaccine supply due to the different contractual arrangements, but in reality if UK had not vaccinated anybody and all those doses had gone to the EU, it would still be a drop in the ocean in terms of the EU requirements (15.5m more people over 65 across the EU approx would be fully vaccinated).
The supply problem for the EU is much greater than the fact that the UK negotiated better contracts with the suppliers, as we are small fry compared to their needs. Knowing this doesn’t help the population of the EU get vaccinated quicker, it’s a very sad situation.

I find this hard to believe. I was speaking to my friend in France two days ago. He and his wife, both in their fifties, have been vaccinated. They have had the Oxford AZ vaccine and got it earlier because they left their details with the local vaccine centre, who gave them a call when people hadn’t turned up and they received the leftover vaccine.

Maybe if Macron hadn’t rubbished the Oxford vaccine there would have been a much higher take up. He has s lot to answer for.

Isn’t it the case that despite all the efforts vaccine cannot be made fast enough to meet demand, as Casdon pointed out if all the UK vaccine had gone to the EU it would still have only covered a fraction of the population.

This is 100% EU trying to blame others for their own incompetence.

Thank you for that interesting analysis Casdon. I read somewhere that if all the vaccines that had come to the UK had gone to EU countries, we would have been slowed down by two months and the EU would have benefitted by about a week.

I feel heart sorry for the individuals in EU countries who are not getting their vaccines, I have many friends there who are affected by this. But as many people have said on here before, the UK has one of the highest death rates in the world and so its actually us who needs a way out quickest.

We're doing well with the vaccine rollout, credit where its due, and we don't need any spanners in the works.

Thanks Casdon, that's really interesting

There was a lovely little letter in the Times yesterday, about the EU and the vaccine - IIRC ‘a case of wanting to have your cake, but not wanting to eat it.’

Poor France. The situation there sounds terrifying.

We’re going straight into the wall,” warned Catherine Hill, doyenne of French epidemiologists. “We’re already saturated and it’s become totally untenable. We can no longer take in non-Covid patients, it is completely mad.”

Prof Hill told Radio France Info today that Mr Macron’s policy of playing for time is nothing less than a “death strategy”.

For goodness sake, M Macron had the benefit of seeing what happened in the UK with the Kent mutant strain. But he did nothing in France.
He had the benefit of seeing how effective the vaccine roll out was in the UK. But he did nothing in France, just made matters worse.
He will be speaking on French TV on Wednesday evening. Sounds like a lockdown will be on the cards. Just as the UK comes out.

Mr Macron’s policy of delay has allowed the South African and Brasilian variants to top 10pc of cases in nine French departments, reaching 36pc in Moselle, 18pc in the Dordogne, and 16pc in the Vosges.

Elisabeth Borne, the labour minister, has been hospitalised with the South African variant. She called it a nightmare. “You have the feeling your whole body is going haywire,” she told Le Parisien.

Ellianne greater Paris and 19 departments are under strict constraint already. Mr Macron will not let this be called a lockdown.

It is dubbed the ‘third way’.

Surely he will have to close the schools for an extended period. The cases are soaring amongst pupils.

“There won’t be a mea culpa from me. I have no remorse and won’t acknowledge failure,” said Mr Macron on Friday.

His priority was to attack the UK not protect his own citizens. Vaccine scepticism is already high in France so instead of looking to address that he made the problem worse.

The EU have made an unholy mess of this but they’ve been aided by idiots such as Macron egging them on.

If I lived in France I don’t know whether I’d be furious or frightened. Probably both.

We are neither furious or frightened. Macron's comments on the AZ vaccine were barely reported here and he has since totally supported the AZ vaccine. The Prime Minister has had it. The roll-out was slow to start but is gathering pace hugely now.
The "English" variant has caused a huge explosion of cases and there is pressure to increase the level of lockdown which will happen this week I suspect. In our bit of France medical services are not overwhelmed and routine care has continued as normal. The children have been in school since May. We are absolutely aware of the rules and what we can and cannot do.
Vaccine scepticism is an interesting one. There is a huge amount of evidence that people say they will not have it when asked by pollsters, but in fact they do. If you look at the actual data the curve of vaccines administered follows the availability of supplies pretty closely.
We are a couple of months behind the UK in the vaccine roll-out and that is a shame. But the fight against Covid is a marathon, not a sprint.
The lies, gloating and triumphalism of the UK press and the ill-informed comments of some people are the only things that upset me. .

mamie ignore the silly triumphalism and puerile comments. I don’t know what else you expected?

It is in the world’s interest that the entire population of the globe is vaccinated as quickly as possible, and I am hoping that our neighbours get the barriers up in the form of vaccine ASAP. along with the rest of the world.

The U.K. of course has thrown everything at every potential viable vaccine and ordered far more than we need. Other countries have approached the issue differently, just as we approached lockdown and other covid related issues rather tardily, other countries locked down and tested very speedily.

Covid is a new disease, scientists throughout the world have worked together like never before and what a success it has been!

It is a pity politicians and others who faithfully follow their lead rather than use any brain they have can’t do the same.