Australia risks becoming collateral damage as the simmering EU vaccine war escalated dramatically overnight amid claims Europe is facing the “crisis of the century”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen threated to seize AstraZeneca factories and even strip the company of its intellectual property rights in an effort to prevent more vaccines being exported.
With the EU facing a third wave of COVID-19 and struggling to vaccinate its 450 million citizens, she warned overnight that “everything is on the table”.
Exports of the vaccine to Australia have already been jeopardised by the stoush, but the real target is the United Kingdom for being too successful in its vaccination program.
Incredibly, the UK government has finally got its act together and managed to vaccinate some 25 million people (yes, the population of Australia) in only 100 days while the EU has been lagging and claims Britain is withholding vital vaccine exports to Europe.
To sum up the vaccine wars: the UK has been successfully producing AstraZeneca vaccines and has contracts to send them to Europe while the majority of the vaccines exported from the EU to the UK have been made by Pfizer, which distributes globally from Europe. The EU has already blocked one export request of 250,000 Oxford AstraZeneca doses from Italy to Australia.
While Brussels’ desperate and heavy-handed response has brought no end of smugness to the Brexit brigade in Britain, the broader international implications are enormous.
There are the obvious immediate health issues, “life and death” as the EU is warning, but it is a timely reminder of the dangers of protectionism of any kind and how quickly the rules-based order can deteriorate.
And it’s not like we haven’t had plenty of warning during the pandemic of the “every country for itself” approach — who can forget China buying up PPE from around the world.
A year ago the Australian government had a stark warning that we would need to ramp up local supply chains, especially local vaccine manufacturing capability. Thankfully biotech company CSL seems to have the ball rolling, despite some initial hiccups with AstraZeneca production.
(It probably helps that a key AstraZeneca executive actually lives in Australia.)
The EU crisis is a timely reminder of why more action is needed here now. Only last month in a pre-budget submission to the federal government the Australian Academy of Science warned we would be more at risk of global vaccination shortages unless onshore manufacturing capabilities are increased.
Incredible that the nation’s leading scientists saw it coming. Not so incredible that the Morrison government has merely done a warmed-over press release for a $1.5 billion modern manufacturing strategy without addressing the call for more funding, specifically for locally produced vaccines.
It has the chance to address that in the upcoming budget, but with the EU vaccine war escalating and the Australian rollout slowly underway, let’s hope it don’t wait until the next crisis.
The EU crisis is a timely reminder of why more action is needed here now. Only last month … the Australian Academy of Science warned we would be more at risk of global vaccination shortages unless onshore manufacturing capabilities are increased.
It is not just vaccine supply that is a major concern. We had run down national stocks of PPE, we rely on “just in time” deliveries of essential drugs,.. the list is quite long. And the total cock-up of yesterday’s announced stage 1b vaccine rollout is another worrying example of the federal government’s lack of understanding and severely deficient organisational skills.
Incompetent is a descriptor I use with increasing frequency…
The LNP have stripped the public service & privatised everything possible. The defence force is now an extension of the US military, Australia’s film industry now just an extension of Hollywood & Scottie is doing his very best to live up to Trump’s reputation as a nation wrecker. He is doing a good job of it. We are buggered.
Not one single mention of the dangers of vaccines in this whole article.. Just the continual MSM drivel of the “fait accompli”…you are all pro vax tunnel vision derelict of duty of care tossers. FD is the worse among you but Janine is not far behind.
Is this a joke, or just another paid govt/pharmaceutical advertorial? The only crisis is the vaccine itself. With the mounting worldwide vaccine death rate and side effects covered up by our friends in the MSM, I would have thought some valid balanced articles from Cky to be on the menu. But no, zilch, nada, FA.I thought journalists had the citizenry’s interest at heart but instead they are fast becoming complicit in not only the crisis of the century but also the crime of the century. Pick it up, Janine. Pick it up and show some gutz.
Mounting world wide vaccine deaths? PROOF PLEASE. QANON your thing? Sounding very deep in some conspiracy. You need help. Clearly you are not capable of posting facts if this is the best you can do.
Astra Zenica is looking problematic now.
Agree that this may not be the best vaccine to use.
Our petrol reserves are somewhere in America- yet to be refined- Angus knows where…………..
It is too late now, but had the vaccine research been open source (for all/any nation to research further), rather than intellectual property rights, the world would be in a much better situation with regard to vaccinations at a greater pace and a wider coverage. We are now stuck with profit being the majority issue. Plus the geopolitical situation – Sputnik and Cinovac no good (You start to speak Russian or Chinese after a jab!). And don’t forget the funds for research of vaccines has come from the governments of many nations. Its basically tax payer funded, yet the profits apparently to to the pharma companies. Shameful in a global pandemic? Or am I naive?
No one knows the effectiveness of Sputnik or Cinovac because they have not had the phases 1 to 3 trials done.
I for one am not volunteering to have either of those 2 or the Indian copy, either.
Female logic versus arrogant male anger. Even while they make the vaccine, they still cant stop themselves developing new more inhumane weapons to kill us. I cant begin to fathom the twisted logic of the world leaders.
The EU is a useful short term and ideological target not just for Brexiters, but for the LNP govt’s noise machine; ably facilitated by our ‘media’ and the ‘Anglosphere’ (e.g. Morrison demanding that the EU supplies PNG with one million vaccines, seemingly unquestioned by media, what?).
The UK jumped the queue, in the midst of Brexit, by approving and ordering AstraZeneca vaccines before the EU, as the latter must go through protocols and approval for all nations, which is not rapid.
For similar reasons that during this current Covid crisis, an EU company i.e. AstraZeneca, contracted to supply nations in the EU can be held to account if found to be undercutting existing agreements; basic business ethics.
Like Tory MPs in the UK, the EU is a useful scapegoat for the UK, applying libertarian principles to their Covid health response that backfired (luckily Oz had states making decisions), this includes JIT (just in time) public investment that cannot deal with ‘black swan’ events or emergencies; same governments then spend forever ‘spinning’ and deflecting.
“vaccines. Where the bloody hell are ya?”
Robodebt scomo scores again!
So, on a worldwide level, how much of the vaccination programme goes to waste if export restrictions, et al, stop swathes of populations getting the second dose in a course?