Fritsen

And whose fault was the lack of availability? You guessed it! The EU’s and national governments’ fault for their absolutely dismal procurement “strategy”. Call a spade a spade for once. It’s getting shy-making.

Now that we know that everyone is an adult and can utilise the ignore feature, let us move on from the incessant navel gazing and return to the EU’s/Germany’s many and unending failures ...

It’s set up that way to get new readers. You can read it if you click from Google search results or social media to encourage people to share articles and to allow non subscribers to “see what they’re missing” but only once or twice without clearing your cookies. 

 

  Yes, they all prevented serious illness, hospitalisation and death in the clinical trials. Only the Johnson & Johnson trial included significant exposure to the Brazilian and South African strains, and it was still successful in preventing serious illness, hospitalisation and death. The point that the medical community keeps trying to drive home is to stop focusing on the efficacy rates.  And whether the BioNTech vaccine can be more easily adapted in future has nothing to do with the BioNTech vaccine you're going to be offered in the next month or two. Again, all vaccines successfully prevent serious illness, hospitalisation and death, so splitting hairs over which one is "better" is rather pointless, tbh.

  It's not a study. It's one of many educational pieces being put out by governments, media and healthcare professionals to inform people that you cannot compare efficacy rates for vaccine trials that were conducted differently and at different periods during the pandemic. Doing so is a fool's errand. More importantly, these efficacy rates apply *only* to the clinical trials and not the real world. We have no idea what the efficacy rate of BioNTech, AZ, Moderna, etc. is against the Brazilian and South African variants, for example.   People have been taking vaccines their whole lives and never even thought about efficacy rates. All of a sudden, people are hung up on efficacy rates without even having a basic understanding of what they're talking about. These pieces being put out are trying to change that.

That's not really how that works ...   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3odScka55A

  Well they posted a QAnon YT vid in this very thread, so I had assumed ...

Yea, my state opened vaccines to everyone over 16 last week. I called to see when the J&J would be available (not yet in my hometown) but was told they could give me the first Moderna shot on 6 April. The incredible failures of the EU and its member states' governments are shocking and both a disgrace and humiliation. Pretending otherwise is just blind, feverish patriotism. These governments and EU officials should be held to account for their many and repeated failures. It's costing thousands of lives every month and driving the economies of the EU-27 into the abyss.

America is truly a hellscape. 

  Don't worry, I feel quite confident Germany will revise its AZ recommendations for the umpteenth time soon enough.

Even WHO, not spectacularly competent itself, agrees Europe is a shit show.   https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/01/covid-vaccine-scheme-unacceptably-slow-in-europe-says-who?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

  Who are these tens of thousands of people in your head going to polling centres to impersonate other people to steal their votes? It's just a bizarre thing to be frightened of and, yes, it does have the tinge of racism to it, however subconscious. Obsessing over voter IDs is a sideshow ...

  To be fair, America has been the punchline for quite some time now. I am actually mildly surprised we haven't seen a mass shooting or dozen at polling sites yet, frankly.

  I sincerely hope that is not the case, considering we're in the midst of an economy-wrecking shutdown of varying degrees depending on the month. Certainly whatever Moderna costs would be peanuts in the long run if it means getting out of this seemingly never ending mess sooner rather than later, especially since the AZ rollout has proven to be an utter disaster in the EU. BioNTech / Pfizer can't do all the lifting ...