Sometimes I look at an article and am surprised by the amount of outrage and personalised vilification that hits the reader. Usually, with this amount of vehemence, there is a barely concealed sub text aimed at another subject. The language used is an obvious indication and I will give you a small selection of words and phrases used in an Opinion Piece that recently appeared in the Irish Times. Let’s give you a quick sample: rats in a sack, rabid English, buffoonish mindgames, ‘secretive, toxic, nationalistic protectionism’ and sh*ts. You and I have seen worse but it does warn you that perhaps this piece is written by someone venting their spleen rather than writing from their head and heart. I am referring to an article written by Kathy Sheridan, entitled ‘UK vaccine rollout success facilitated by EU’. It is a commentary on the ongoing issue of the supply of the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine. If you took out all the invective and extraneous material you are left with the EU narrative that the UK is being unfair in the distribution of the vaccine. By the way, I must give a joined up example of the sort of invective that threads its way through her argument. When criticising Britain for not solving EU problems, her analysis is as follows, “First dibs to the British prime minister who let the virus rip, presided over a new British variant, ate all the vaccines and now piously frets that Europe’s third wave “will wash up on our shores as well” because – wait for it – “we’re all facing the same pandemic, we all have the same problems”. But . . . but the third wave IS the Britain strain”. By her logic do we train our sights on the Italian’s and blame them for the first wave? Is she really saying that Boris has some hidden Wuhan type laboratory or bat caves, whichever theory you favour and has deliberately unleashed a new variant on the EU? Has Boris ‘eaten’ all the vaccines? Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, even the Sputnik jab? I would also take issue with some of the other comments in that paragraph but you can see how the whole piece is argued.
Let us try to strip out the salient points and see if there is any merit in them. We can first look to the development and contracting arrangements for the Oxford Astra Veneca vaccine. I use the full title to acknowledge the fact that this drug was developed outside the EU and only one of four production units resides within the EU. As reported by the Express, Matt Hancock acknowledged this in his address to the House.
He said he was “proud” AstraZeneca had agreed to produce the jab at cost price in order to ensure it was affordable around the world. The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was developed because of UK taxpayers putting the funding into the science, to the development, to the clinical trials,” he said in the Commons this afternoon. Matt Hancock addressing the House of Commons
The second point to note is that the research and development was not funded by the EU but the US and UK tax payer and this may have been reflected in the British contract with the British/Swedish company. Sheridan has a conflicting view on the rule of law and thinks that a contract is only valid if it satisfies her view. As she says, “Principle matters, and the rule of law. If decency and reciprocity are seized on as EU weaknesses and used to harm its people, should the gun be fired to prove strength? ” Her ‘Principle’ in this case, seems to be that because the EU ‘dropped the ball’ with the negotiations that the rule of law can be overturned by brute force. Neither side have revealed the terms of the contract but according to a BBC report, quoting from the Politico website, the UK had negotiated,” … a clause in the UK’s contract which says the government “may terminate the deal and invoke what appear to be punishment clauses” if there is a delay in supply. According to Politico, the EU waived its right to sue the company in the event of delivery delays. The European Commission says it is now involved in a “dispute mechanism” with the company.”
The one thing that Sheridan believes in is interdependence and reciprocity, as she says, “The interconnectedness of the world, always a subject of derision to Brexiters, was never more exposed. Arguing against the EU’s proposed export ban, Taoiseach Micheál Martin pointed out that 280 materials go into making up the Pfizer vaccine, involving 86 suppliers and 19 countries.” I think that she misread Micheál Martins point. He was warning against arbitrary non legal action by the EU by highlighting the fact that so many countries are involved in the production of any vaccine. He may have been thinking of the essential ingredient in the Pfizer vaccine, produced by Croda International in the UK.
Pfizer has warned the EU to back down from its threat to block vaccines to the UK because the firm needs crucial ingredients shipped from Yorkshire
The Telegraph reports, “Pfizer has warned the EU to back down from its threat to block vaccines to the UK because the firm needs crucial ingredients shipped from Yorkshire.” Or perhaps it was in relation to the production of Novavax which is thought to be very effective against the South African variant and will also be produced in the UK. I think the subtext to Micheáls comment that should be understood by Sheridan is that if the EU “pulls the trigger” people on both sides will be hurt, not just those of her enemies.
I am really not sure how Sheridan’s claim that the EU ‘export’ of 41million doses of the Pfizer drug supports her argument. I will take it on trust that 10 million doses were sent to the UK but I don’t see how the EU was demonstrating any good will with this transaction. In the absence of any other information in the article, I would assume that this was a normal supply of a drug from a US Pharmaceutical company, shipped from it’s EU plant. Have the EU demanded the return of the other 31 million doses from the other Pfizer customers? Perhaps there was some other noble part to this export. Was the EU sending the doses to some less fortunate country at cost, as is the case with the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine? If not, it just seems like any other transaction, apart from Brussels attempts at strong arming the UK.
The real problem is there for everyone to see and is shown in the following graph. The one on the left shows the number of vaccinations administered per 100 for Israel, the US, the UK and the EU . Israel leads the group with the US and UK following at a much lower rate with the EU trailing far behind. There were many problems for the EU in trying to co ordinate an effective vaccination program with 27 countries. These include, inter alia, a slow bureaucracy, national antipathy, lack of confidence in vaccines, lack of confidence in the Commission and energy expended refighting the last war. If we take one element, that of the time taken to approve the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine we can see delay after delay whilst the UK fast tracked the process. At the same time the vaccine was being tested, a huge campaign was launched by the NHS to ensure the public had confidence in the product. Oddly enough, you could take the words from a critic of Astra Zeneca and apply it to the EU roll out. Just imagine ‘EU’ in place of ‘Astra Zeneca’ as the subject in the following extract from a BBC interview with Mr Lamberts MEP, in which he states “They commit, they de-commit, they de-commit on new commitments without any warning.” Of course he was talking about the rollout issues and Astra Veneca’s difficulty in resolving them but the quote sums up the companies problems dealing with the EU. In short, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine, after some delay, in January. Some EU countries were not happy with the statistics for the older age groups and restricted it’s use for the over 65’s. By March, France and Germany approved it for the 65 -74 age group but delayed again over fear of people developing blood clots post vaccination. EMA reassured them that there was no evidence to support these fears and distribution restarted with France restricting use to the over 55’s. Now, Germany has again stopped vaccination despite assurances from the EMA and the Commission. The absence of trust in the EU institutions and seemingly non scientific bias locally has created mistrust in the vaccine as seen in the graph from the Economist, below.
This rather hesitant approach by the EU nations seems not to chime with Sheridan’s apocalyptic picture of the experienced on the continent, ” This is not about frozen sausage meat. People are dying, battling long Covid and mental illness in the embers of crushed economies.” Perhaps, Sheridan could persuade the EU to use up the vaccine held in storage, presumable as a result of nations stop start approach to roll out. On this subject we should return to the BBC interview with Mr Lamberts, “Mr Webb interjected: “All of that would sound more cogent coming from the European side if it was not the case that there are literally millions of AstraZeneca doses that are available in Europe but are not being used and just stored.” The Belgian MEP replied: “There you have a point, I will make no dispute about that.”
“All of that would sound more cogent coming from the European side if it was not the case that there are literally millions of AstraZeneca doses that are available in Europe but are not being used and just stored.” The Belgian MEP replied: “There you have a point, I will make no dispute about that.” BBC interview with Mr Lamberts MEP
To summarise, if our “hovering Martian” that opened up Sheridan’s article, could see the full picture, what would they conclude? Simply put, they would see one vaccine produced by a combination of a UK University and Pharmaceutical company, financed by the UK’s taxpayer. They would also note that most of the orders placed for the UK are produced by the UK factories at Oxford and Keele They would see that the UK rapidly changed the approval system and with “roaring success” (Sheridan’s words) became the lead European country to vaccinate it’s population. In contrast, what do we see from the EU? We see an extended and bureaucratic approach to the contract with Astra Zeneca. UK took the risk of underwriting any liability and the EU demurred, at the expense of it’s citizens and their economy as described by Sheridan. Then the EMA delayed approving the vaccine and struggled to gain the trust of national governments to accept it’s leadership, as discussed above (an example of nationalistic protectionism?).
We have seen that the Commission, under Ursula von der Leyen has come under fire for it’s lacklustre performance. To some degree, the targeting of the UK is an attempt to divert attention from it’s inability to lead and adjust to emergencies. For once, Sheridan is justified in the use of her unflattering descriptions in describing the EU Commission as, “a bunch of flapping mackerel right now.” However, she is wrong in somehow attributing their response to Brexit. If that was the case the logic of her argument should be that the EU, having been liberated from those awful Brits, should have outperformed them. We seem to have reached the sub text of her article. All those references to ‘toxic nationalism’ and ‘rabid English’ and so on reveal the fire that drives her disordered diatribe. The key sentence in all her writings is, “Johnson’s programme is in jeopardy because he failed to co-ordinate and co-operate with Europe.”
“Johnson’s programme is in jeopardy because he failed to co-ordinate and co-operate with Europe.” Sheridan, Irish Times
If only those Brits hadn’t left the EU then they would have looked as incompetent as the rest of the Union. That Boris and those football hooligans, that drove all those nice Oxbridge people out of the Union, shouldn’t be able to tie their own shoe laces let alone organise a ‘roaring’ successful vaccination program. There may be plenty of opportunities in the future for Sheridan to register her glee at Britain’s problems but not this time. Britain has left the EU and is not responsible for resolving the EU’s problems. Perhaps, Sheridan should retrain her sights on to the real problem, that of the EU itself and leave Britain to make it’s own mistakes.
Sources
Irish Times, 24/03/21, Kathy Sheridan, UK vaccine rollout success facilitated by EU
Where is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine made? – BBC News
Exclusive: Pfizer warns EU to back down on Covid vaccine threat to UK (telegraph.co.uk)
Covid: What’s the problem with the EU vaccine rollout? – BBC News