Wuhan virus 2020

[Skybird]

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/corona-impfstoff-knappheit-die-eu-hat-einen-machtverlust-erlitten-und-das-bekommt-sie-jetzt-zu-spueren-a-7dc4101c-abb8-4883-b4f6-4acad29b5acb



European lawyer on vaccine shortages "The EU has suffered a loss of power and it is now feeling that"

European lawyer Frank Schorkopf sees the EU in a weak position in the dispute over vaccine deliveries - precisely because of this, the conflict could widen dramatically.

An interview by Dietmar Hipp
January 29, 2021, 7.30 p.m.

SPIEGEL: Professor Schorkopf, the British-Swedish pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca initially wants to deliver significantly fewer doses of its corona vaccine to the EU than planned, allegedly due to production difficulties in Belgium. Can you understand that?

Schorkopf: One is the technical difficulties - I'm going to assume that they are real, otherwise the manufacturer would not get into such a conflict.

SPIEGEL: And the other one?

Schorkopf: Those are the legal obligations. But even if the manufacturer were to break the contract, the EU can do little legally.

SPIEGEL: AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot has already stated that there was no delivery guarantee and that other customers who would have ordered earlier would now receive preferential delivery .

Schorkopf: Yes, and it is noticeable that the EU Commission is outraged, but does not expressly object. At least she has now published the contracts, even if they have been partially blackened. AstraZeneca is required to "make the best possible effort" to provide certain quantities at certain times. However, it is not entirely clear whether the plants in Great Britain are included in this delivery obligation.

SPIEGEL: After a conversation with AstraZeneca, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said on Twitter yesterday: " We regret the continuing lack of clarity about the delivery schedule ."

Schorkopf: In any case, the EU is also responsible for this lack of clarity. The EU calls for "fairness", also internationally, which tends to suggest a weak position.
SPIEGEL: Couldn't you sue the manufacturer for cutting other customers and delivering more to the EU in return?

Schorkopf: But if he still refuses, for whatever reason, that won't help. You cannot switch to other providers at the moment. And even if AstraZeneca were eventually sentenced to pay damages, that wouldn't give us the vaccine we need now.

SPIEGEL: The EU is already threatening an export ban for the AstraZeneca vaccine .

Schorkopf: The Commission wants to create a mechanism that first makes the supply flows transparent and at the end of which there can actually be an export ban. But that doesn't help either if there are actually production difficulties in Belgium and at the moment only the British plants are fully producing. For their part, the British government and the local public would hardly put up with the fact that the manufacturer cuts deliveries to the British and instead sends more to the EU. Then the Johnson administration would probably very quickly prevent exports for its part.

SPIEGEL: And then what?

Schorkopf: Then an international escalation threatens. In principle, we are dealing with a direct consequence of Brexit: We are painfully aware that the EU no longer has the entire European economic area under control. The EU has suffered a loss of power and it is now feeling that.

SPIEGEL: What could such an escalation look like?

Schorkopf:For example, the EU could prohibit another manufacturer's vaccine - Biontech - from being shipped to the UK from Belgium. But Great Britain would react to that too. In the past, deep conflicts arose from something like this. Fortunately, that is not to be feared now. But these vaccines are currently the most important resource worldwide, far ahead of data, gold or weapons. The tighter they are, the harder the struggle is between the buyers - and that is the nation states, and in our case the EU. Only recently, the EU was very patronizing. One did not want to place oneself on a par with the governments of the USA and Great Britain and their "America first" or "Britain first" doctrine. But a state is responsible for the health of its own citizens.Now suddenly Brussels too is fighting for the solid interests of its member states. But unfortunately only from a position of relative weakness."Wait your turn," a British newspaper just ran the headline.

SPIEGEL: The EU member states have given Brussels the power to buy vaccines.

Schorkopf: The protection of health is a matter for the states. Their governments are actually responsible. The EU Commission has taken on this task from its member states, in particular Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chancellor Angela Merkel as President of the European Council have agreed on this. There were certainly good reasons for this, even if it could have been organized differently, for example through cooperation between strong member states, as was initially planned.

SPIEGEL: Smaller member states could easily have gotten caught up in this.

Schorkopf: Not necessarily. Nevertheless, one could have ordered enough for everyone. However, in retrospect, at least in retrospect, it is difficult to understand that the costs were struggled for months, with a possible saving of at best a few euros per dose, but that - at least in fact - a disadvantage in terms of delivery was negotiated.

SPIEGEL: That was apparently less due to EU buyers than to smaller member states, which were afraid of excessive costs.

Schorkopf: There is so much at stake for the Federal Republic of Germany that Germany could also have said that we would take double that and give away what is left. In an emergency, Federal Health Minister Spahn has now obtained a drug that costs 2,000 euros per dose. Not to mention the financial consequences of a lockdown extended by weeks or months. The EU has negotiated cheap prices. But at what cost to our economy, our public budgets, perhaps our political system?

SPIEGEL: Tell us.

Schorkopf: It is still too early to judge that. But if “protecting the European way of life” is the goal of the EU Commission, then it has burned a lot of goodwill here. The EU, it must be emphasized once again, is actually not responsible for health policy. Some people in Brussels were therefore delighted that things were getting moving here too in terms of ever closer European integration . But maybe it would have been better to bet on a slightly less existential question.

SPIEGEL: There is a saying in Brussels that a serious crisis is too valuable to be wasted.

Schorkopf: But the European integrationists got lost here, presumably because they wanted something bigger politically.

SPIEGEL: What?

Schorkopf: Well, to live European solidarity, which is a good idea, and to advance European integration. The latter should at least not be an end in itself. And if that is at the expense of the health of the European population, not to mention the economy and public finances, then I see it critically. The apparently strong EU can suddenly find itself in a very weak position. The EU tends, like states, to legitimize itself more and more through success and less through the correct procedure. This becomes especially a problem when success does not materialize, when it does not deliver in both senses of the word. The European edition of the magazine »Politico« has just published a large report onwhich ends with the fact that the "slower, more deliberate and cooperative efforts of the EU could have cost precious time and lives." That would be tragic, but it would also be a signal that would cancel out goodwill, both internally and externally, if the fundamental rights to protect health and life had been sacrificed in favor of European solidarity.

----

Frank Schorkopf , born in 1970, is professor for constitutional and European law at the University of Göttingen. As an agent, he has represented the federal government before the Federal Constitutional Court.

[mapuc]

In a care home here in Denmark every elder and the nurses and doctors have got their two shots-10 of the elder and some of the nurses has nevertheless got infected with corona.

In the news they said-the vaccine does not prevent you from being infected. It protect you so the corona doesn't develop to Covid-19

Markus

[Skybird]

https://www.manager-magazin.de/unter...b-f93cf825cff2


Brussels vaccination failure:
Export bans accelerate the decline of the EU

An opinion-piece by Daniel Stelter

The EU and the German federal government have failed across the board when it comes to procuring the corona vaccine. This leads to the recent helplessness towards Astrazeneca. The threats from Brussels also represent the EU's decline on the global stage.

It is hard to deny that the EU and the federal government have failed across the board in getting vaccines. It was partly bad luck, but above all a completely wrong strategy. As already explained at this point , it is worthwhile to buy from all providers for all citizens of the EU and to assume the cost of production capacities, and it is still a gigantic economic gain.

Those responsible and their supporters in politics and the media are trying with all their might to divert attention from this blatant state failure and accuse critics of practicing "vaccination nationalism" or "knowing better afterwards". Both are proven to be wrong. Joint procurement is correct, but it must then also be done professionally.

Great Britain is showing the way

Britain , which recently left the EU, shows how to do it . If you look at the causes of the significantly higher vaccination numbers - almost 500,000 people were vaccinated there last Sunday alone - you can see the following simple points:

• Fast approval : both the UK and the USA approved the vaccines much faster. This does not mean that the process was less thorough, it rather shows that the licensing authority in Brussels has worked in the usual leisurely manner.
• Early purchase and production guarantees : the British had contracts with Astrazeneca, Pfizer / Biontech , Valneva, GSK / Sanofi, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson as early as August . The EU was still thinking about it. Even more important: an agreement between the government and the generics manufacturer Wockhardt - also concluded in August - to exclusively fill and package vaccines for 18 months. 100 million cans exclusively for the UK.
• Concentration on the first vaccination: Instead of holding the second dose of the Biontech vaccine for the booster vaccination, as many people as possible are given the first vaccination. This seems justifiable given that a significant part of the vaccination protection comes with the first dose, as so many more people are protected.
• Easy appointment scheduling: hundreds of thousands of high-risk patients have been written to, making appointments via the Internet and telephone is easy and works.
• Large network of vaccination centers: over 1200 vaccination centers have already been set up. More are being set up so that no citizen has to travel more than ten miles to their vaccination center. The vaccination is given around the clock, seven days a week.
• Volunteers and the military help: The British Army helps with the logistics, a good 200,000 volunteers and military personnel are deployed.

While we are in the headlines about the high number of infections and deaths from Great Britain, we have to acknowledge that the British government is way ahead on the only instrument that really works - vaccination. The country is also struggling with the "British" variant of the corona virus. There cannot be a "German" only because we only carried out a good 2000 tests for mutations in the pandemic year 2020 - in Great Britain more samples are tested every week!

Panic in Brussels and Berlin

The population of the EU and Germany is slowly realizing that the politicians have failed across the board in view of the historic task and the enormous economic, social and societal consequences of the Corona crisis. One can only wonder that there is no wave of demands for resignation.

The result: Politicians not only continue to try to throw sand in the eyes with questionable statements - for example: "We have ordered more than enough vaccine", without saying when this vaccine will arrive, which is the decisive factor - but instead on the grand gesture. Now that Astrazeneca is struggling with delivery problems, politicians in Brussels and Berlin are calling for export bans on vaccines. In essence, this means no more vaccine should be shipped to the UK as this is the only other market in which the vaccine is approved.

This demand may be popular and sound like good policy, but in reality it represents the accelerated decline of the EU. Why?

• First of all , an export ban does not change the problem . As shown above, the British have their own capacities and will accordingly export to the EU later. In view of the quantities, less vaccine is likely to be available in the EU than without the export ban.
• Everyone in business now knows that if they have a production site in the EU, they run the risk of being subject to an export ban . Vaccines today, biotechnology tomorrow and the day after tomorrow ... Every company has to consider whether it is an acceptable risk to manufacture in the EU for the world. The answer is clear: no.
• This lasting destruction of trust in the EU as a business location fits into the already existing tendency towards overregulation and planned economy control - not least visible in the failed climate policy.
• In the EU, the gap between desire and reality is growing ever more clearly . Instead of becoming the "most competitive region in the world" , as it was decided in Lisbon in 2000 , the EU is being left behind by the USA and China in all decisive future areas.

Opportunity for UK

With its failure to procure vaccines, the EU retrospectively provides the British with a justification for Brexit (which I very much regret and think is wrong!) And all EU citizens an objective reason for skepticism about the euro. Planned economy interventions, which damage the location even more, do not help, but lay the basis for even greater dissatisfaction with the EU in the future.

For the UK, on ​​the other hand, there are increasing opportunities to benefit from the Brussels failure. So it makes sense to lure international companies to Great Britain with the promise that they can always deliver anywhere in the world, no matter what. And it looks like Brussels should offer many more opportunities to differentiate itself positively in the coming years.
--------
Daniel Stelter is the founder of the "Beyond the Obvious" discussion forum, which specializes in strategy and macroeconomics, and is a management consultant. Prior to that, Stelter was with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) from 1990 to 2013, most recently as Senior Partner, Managing Director and member of the BCG Executive Committee. His new book "A Dream of a Country - Germany 2040" will be published on February 10, 2021.
Twitter: @thinkBTO

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

It protect you so the corona doesn't develop to Covid-19

?!?! That makes no sense. Corona is a family of virusses (which are familiar to us since long time), of which Covid-19 is a strain that actually runs the pandemic. You probably mean that an infected but vaccinated person does not form a severe cause with severe symptoms, only a mild cause?!

The virus load at exposition time is long since known to decide on the severity of the individual case as well. The more virusses attack already at infection time, the faster the virus population in the organsim reaches treshold value where it can fully attack the organism and immune system. The immune system has less time to learn, train and adapt. Thats why masks help to increase the likelihood of a mild going even if the person wearing them gets infected: the person gets infected with less virusses in the beginning, and the immune system wins some time to advance further its preparation before the virus load in the organism reaches that treshhold level. A vaccination also implements a pre-prepared immune system defence, and so the desease may run weaker in that patient.

We also know that at least some of these vaccines may protect the person, but that person still can become carrier and can infest others.

[mapuc]

^ I think you are correct and I have misunderstod what this doctor said the news.

Markus

[Buddahaid]

"European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she and Boris Johnson had "constructive talks".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55865539

[ikalugin]

I would point out that vaccines can be optimised to:
1) decrease the probability (p) or death
2) decrease the p of heavy symptoms
3) decrease the p of infection

In my understanding most vaccines were optimised for (1) and/or (2), not (3), so even heavy/total vaccination would not eradicate spread, I seem to recall information from Israel that while their vaccination did reduce the burden of the desease it reduced the infection rate by only ~1/3, but I may be misinformed/misremembering.

Originally Posted by Catfish

'Sputnik' seems to be not bad at all, also it has the same vectoral approach as the Astra-Zeneca type of vaccine afaik

Yes, not sure if A-Z use two different vector viruses the way Gamalea does.

[Skybird]

Imagine. Putin poisons Nawalny, Germany is demanded to stop Nord Stream2, but then the EU buys the Putivaccine.

[Skybird]

Super-Uschi hat's mal wieder verkackt. As already so many times before. And "Die Welt", btw, is not a EU hostile national paper in Germany, but considers itself to be centrist, EU-friendly. The many salvos they currently fire against the EU is not their agenda, but is well-deserved. The EU and Super-Uschi and Merkel ask for it.

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/...der-Leyen.html

Ursula von der Leyen's unforgettable Brexit own goal

The crisis management of the EU Commission chief caused the first collateral damage. The German is undermining the Union's credibility with her actions.

It seldom happens that the EU Commission issues communications very late in the evening. Disasters, wars and crises can force Brussels to act even at night. However, a decision announced by the authority on Friday evening is not due to external factors. Rather, it is an attempt to correct collateral damage caused by Ursula von der Leyen's Corona Management.

Because this is serious, it is too late to correct it anyway. The Anglophile EU Commission chief, who is so dear to good relations with the UK after Brexit, has massively undermined precisely those in her increasingly desperate attempt to distract from her own mistakes. And it has damaged the credibility of the EU itself, because it put the long-preached importance of an open border in Northern Ireland aside.

What happened? On Friday afternoon, Brussels presented a regulation with which the export of vaccines should be strictly monitored and possibly even stopped. The background to this is the slow deliveries of vaccines to EU members. Von der Leyen sees the blame for this on pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, which allegedly fail to meet their contractual commitments and lack transparency.


A long list of countries is excluded from the measure, all neighboring countries of the EU, only one not: the United Kingdom, which, as is well known, masters its vaccination program excellently because it develops and produces vaccines in its own country and concluded supply contracts early on.

But Brussels went further. A safeguard clause was drawn up in the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, which regulates the complex status of British territory on the Irish island after Brexit. In fact, von der Leyen ordered the closure of the border between the Irish Republic and the British North because potentially “European” vaccines could find their way into the United Kingdom unhindered.

An absurd decision because Northern Ireland is already covered by the British vaccination program. However, this excess act was even more absurd, because just a few months ago the EU Commission was screaming and screaming when Boris Johnson had called the Northern Ireland Protocol into question with a bill. On their high moral steed, the Europeans looked forward to cornering the British prime minister, with the help of the shortly thereafter elected US President Joe Biden, to whom peace in Northern Ireland is a precious good because of his Irish roots.

This is exactly what the Europeans had claimed for themselves for years and closed ranks around Ireland, which was hard hit by Brexit and whose stability was feared because of the border issue. Von der Leyen, however, seems to have completely forgotten that in her Corona panic. The Irish government has not even been consulted about the export controls hastily issued by Brussels.


An outcry went through the kingdom over the "incredibly hostile act", as Northern Ireland Prime Minister Foster put it. The protest in Ireland and in her own authority also forced the Germans to give in. She cashed in the triggering of the safeguard clause in the shadow of the night.

The hardliners in the Kingdom will not forget von Leyen's own Brexit goal and use it as a welcome template if torpedoing the Brexit agreement pays off domestically. Meanwhile, the pro-Europeans on the island are increasingly wondering whether the departure from Brussels might not have been so bad after all.

Lets not forget that the EU desaster policy is a Leyen-Merkel coproduction. The two German super-nannies lobbied heavily for havign the EU taking over responsibilities that in principle are not its own and that it has no legal basis to take over: health policy in Europe is nations' responsibilities - not the EU's. So the problem already starts with the EU once again sticking its pesky imertinent little nose into things that in principle were not its business.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Imagine. Putin poisons Nawalny, Germany is demanded to stop Nord Stream2, but then the EU buys the Putivaccine.

Money doesn't smell, we would sell it.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

"European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she and Boris Johnson had "constructive talks".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55865539

I don't think the EU really had that much choice after the 'Trumpian act' they demonstrated to the rest of the world. As far as I can ascertain there were many within the EU who were disgusted by the measure when first announced.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Money doesn't smell, we would sell it.

Sure you would, and why wouldnt you! I was more about mocking morale apostles here in the West.

[Jimbuna]

Not the best of sources but the story tells itself.

[Skybird]

Maybe team EU Commission should hire the services of Mr. Guiliani from the US to get their stuff "fixed", I heard he is no longer involved in the impeachment show and has plenty of free time and talent at his hands.

[Skybird]

A man's experience with getting the Sputnik-V jab.


https://www.dw.com/en/my-experience-...ine/a-56391327