Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:59 pm  

Mild Rover wrote:

I would have suggested when we had a plan that could survive the scrutiny of even its own proponents and creators for more than a few weeks. And when adequate preparations were in place. I do have some sympathy people who really wanted to leave the EU because of legitimate anxieties about ever closer political ties to Europe, because all of the prominent figures offering it were/are cartoon-ish gormers.

There would have never been a time to leave the EU that didn't cause significant disruption to what had been going on for 40 years. Unless you stayed in the single market the rules were always going to change - could we have been more prepared when was the last time a major trading nation left the EU and provided a blueprint to follow?

As somebody with legitimate anxieties about late stage capitalism, inequality and ecological collapse, I feel their pain, having had to pin my hopes on Corbyn. I mean, he meant well from my political POV, but you have to give yourself a chance.
Agreed

The problem, imo, was that with a clear and specific plan Leave probably doesn’t win the referendum. But without one, and with Johnson, Gove, JRM et al in charge of cobbling something together it was always going to be a mess.

See above - you also had the EU who let's be honest weren't keen on making it easy - understanably

That tells me almost nothing about the EU as a whole. There’s some information about its constituent parts that are in some cases making a bit of a mess of their vaccination programs. AZ is a British-Swedish multinational, with a Swedish chairman and a French-Australian CEO. I did quite a bit of work with them 2015 to 2017 and it did feel a bit more British than Roche and Novartis feel Swiss, for example. But the idea that the EU doesn’t want use their vaccine because it is too British is laughable paranoia. They’re more frustrated that they can’t get enough of it.

Why would the EU suddenly decide that the vaccine wouldn't work in over 65s with no data, then it was going to cause blood clots - again with no data to support the assumption - both theories not discounted as EU fluff. Why the AZ vaccine and not the Pfizer?

I’m not sure that leaving the EU really solves that broad problem. The freedom given by independence is often notional. In theory we’re a sovereign equal with the US but there is a massive power imbalance. It is going to be similar with the EU in some respects. With more resentment being stoked, admittedly.

I would suggest we are sovereign like the countries in SE Asia - Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea that is more of a reasonable comparison

Some of that I agree with. The simplicity of the NHS concept offers impressive value for the relatively small price we pay compared with most other wealthy countries, imo. Is commercial banking the part of banking associated with synthetic collaterized debt obligations, bankruptcies and massive public bailouts, creating a sense of injustice that led to stuff like Brexit and the Trump Presidency? Tbf, it is about 14 years since the entire system teetered on the brink of collapse, which is nice.
Commercial banking/professional services is not main stream banking its business support functionality something we are pretty good at. These guys were on the other side making all the money when the likes of Fred Goodwin got out of their depth - they weren't struggling

What new opportunities do you see for improving the areas you highlight, resulting from Brexit?
Well done on getting this far, if you have, btw. Have an RLFANS house point.

What opportunities - I see far more aggressive approach to sales, marketing and distribution - product innovation e.g. pharma - where are the lipids for the Pfizer vaccine coming from?

[Mild Rover]

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:09 pm  

In response to ZZB.

I think we could have planned a lot better for Brexit. But I understand the reasons (good, bad and inevitable) why we didn’t. Ultimately, people weigh the costs and benefits differently and we all made up our minds a long time ago.

The AZ-vaccine nervousness within the EU seemed very much to come at the national level. The EU regulatory body (the EMA) approved the AZ vaccine in all age groups and didn’t suspend approval in response the reports of thromboembolic events. I assume that was national health technology assessment agencies exercising an, imo excessive in the circumstances, degree of caution. Just as England has NICE (and Scotland has the SMA and Wales has the AWMSG), France has HAS and Italy has AIFA etc. The approval of all these vaccines was ‘expedited’, so I could kind of get a slightly wary reaction in countries that haven’t been hard hit by COVID. Where they’ve had it nearly as bad as us, it seems perverse to me. But these are independent, sovereign countries and they can make their own decisions.

I should have Googled commercial banking.

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:51 pm  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

In 2019 they did 1.8m Flu jabs not 20m - this vaccination program is unprecedented in scale in this country 20 times the size of the flu jab roll out.

Dear Me,

What a very disingenuous response you slipped in there.

Your just a paid troll on here, most likely in the employ of the conservative and unionist party

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:40 pm  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

Why would the EU suddenly decide that the vaccine wouldn't work in over 65s with no data,

Why do you keep saying "the EU" when you mean individual nation states?

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:41 pm  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

I only mention Corbyn when he patriotic credentials are raised a

You're the one who keeps raising them. Again, questioning someone else's loyalty to country just because they aren't right wing zeolouts is something that happens all too often and is something I find personally pretty despicable.

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:44 pm  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

You don't really believe investing in the public sector will deliver a high knowledge, high skill, high wage economy - do you?

Well we need to start with education. And investment in that sector costs money. And I'm pretty sure you don't want anything close to an increase in our tax base. So what are we looking at? Wishing it into existence? Tax breaks for people who pretend to tick training boxes (been there, done that)? Anything which will actually address the issues we face?

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:13 pm  

The Ghost of '99 wrote:

Well we need to start with education. And investment in that sector costs money. And I'm pretty sure you don't want anything close to an increase in our tax base. So what are we looking at? Wishing it into existence? Tax breaks for people who pretend to tick training boxes (been there, done that)? Anything which will actually address the issues we face?

Are we getting good value for money in our state education system - is the current system delivering the best outcomes and I don't mean loads of GCSEs. Perhaps before spending huge amounts of extra cash we develop a system that delivers maximum value and then start to re-invest - just a thought?

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:15 pm  

Superblue wrote:

Dear Me,

What a very disingenuous response you slipped in there.

Your just a paid troll on here, most likely in the employ of the conservative and unionist party

The 1.9m is on the HM Gov site - go check and come back when you can confirm your 20m jabs?

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:24 pm  

Mild Rover wrote:

In response to ZZB.

I think we could have planned a lot better for Brexit. But I understand the reasons (good, bad and inevitable) why we didn’t. Ultimately, people weigh the costs and benefits differently and we all made up our minds a long time ago.

The AZ-vaccine nervousness within the EU seemed very much to come at the national level. The EU regulatory body (the EMA) approved the AZ vaccine in all age groups and didn’t suspend approval in response the reports of thromboembolic events. I assume that was national health technology assessment agencies exercising an, imo excessive in the circumstances, degree of caution. Just as England has NICE (and Scotland has the SMA and Wales has the AWMSG), France has HAS and Italy has AIFA etc. The approval of all these vaccines was ‘expedited’, so I could kind of get a slightly wary reaction in countries that haven’t been hard hit by COVID. Where they’ve had it nearly as bad as us, it seems perverse to me. But these are independent, sovereign countries and they can make their own decisions.

I should have Googled commercial banking.

There was a couple of cases in Norway - but no correlation to AZ jab was ever made yet Germany, France etc jumped on the bandwagon - why? There were known side effects of the Pfizer jab which were far more prevalent than those of AZ jab - anaphylactic shock, respiratory problem, facial nerve paralysis yet nothing - why AZ and not Pfizer - the logic doesn't stack up.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Vaccine Guinea Pig : Thu Mar 25, 2021 6:34 pm  

Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:

There was a couple of cases in Norway - but no correlation to AZ jab was ever made yet Germany, France etc jumped on the bandwagon - why? There were known side effects of the Pfizer jab which were far more prevalent than those of AZ jab - anaphylactic shock, respiratory problem, facial nerve paralysis yet nothing - why AZ and not Pfizer - the logic doesn't stack up.

I don’t know, and I don’t want to spend the time required to gain a proper understanding. Balancing the benefits and risks can be tricky (although this seemed very odd to me, maybe it was just legal ass covering) but my point here is that the judgement was made by countries individually not by the EU as a bloc.

A very quick Google indicates that in the EU, Sweden (where the Astra-bit comes from), Latvia, France, Austria, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Portugal, Slovenia, Germany, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Denmark and Ireland suspended use. Which means a dozen EU countries didn’t.

European non-EU members Iceland and Norway also suspended use. The Swiss still haven’t even approved it yet AFAIK.

Outside of Europe, Thailand, Indonesia and the DR Congo suspended use.

Brexit has been our national political-cultural obsession, the rest of the EU and world do not care nearly as much and are perfectly capable of making poop decisions irrespective. It is bleakly reassuring to know that we don’t have a monopoly on COVID related idiocy, and that we’re doing better in this regard.