<story><title>EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind</title><url>https://www.statista.com/chart/24471/covid-19-vaccine-doses-per-100-people/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kjakm</author><text>Nonsense. This isn’t really about countries exporting&amp;#x2F;not exporting. These vaccine deals are with private companies who produce their product around the world. Just because vaccines are manufactured in a specific country doesn’t make them property of that country.&lt;p&gt;Whichever country is contractually at the front of the line will have their order fulfilled first&amp;#x2F;according to the terms of the contracts.&lt;p&gt;The EU wasted months negotiating lower prices and then took longer with approvals.&lt;p&gt;There is no good guy or bad guy (at least until the UK or EU blocks exports preventing execution of the private contracts - at that point the country blocking the exports becomes the bad guy).</text></item><item><author>gaha</author><text>The EU has exported 41 millionen vaccine doses of which the UK has gotten 8 million so far [1]. Meanwhile, the UK and US do not export any vaccines at all. So just as a back of the envelope calculation, with 41 millionen doeses the EU could have vaccinated an additional 10% of its population, while the UK would have had more than 10% less vaccinatetions without those 8 million. This would not completetly close the gap, but the numbers would be quite different then.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, you can interpret this in a postivie way: the EU is trying to be good and is sharing its vaccinations more or less fairly with other countries (for now). However, you can also see it as the EU has no real power at all and is just an easy target to get fooled over by other countries..&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dw.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-eu-not-ready-to-share-covid-vaccines-with-poorer-countries&amp;#x2F;a-56944274&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dw.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-eu-not-ready-to-share-covi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sgift</author><text>&amp;gt; Nonsense. This isn’t really about countries exporting&amp;#x2F;not exporting. These vaccine deals are with private companies who produce their product around the world. Just because vaccines are manufactured in a specific country doesn’t make them property of that country.&lt;p&gt;The US used the national defense production act to block any export of BioNTech&amp;#x2F;Pfizer vaccine produced in the US to other countries, so no, this is not just &amp;quot;These vaccine deals are with private companies who produce their product around the world.&amp;quot; - countries can and do influence these deals if it benefits them. UK did the same thing.</text></comment>
<story><title>EU vaccine rollout severely lags behind</title><url>https://www.statista.com/chart/24471/covid-19-vaccine-doses-per-100-people/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kjakm</author><text>Nonsense. This isn’t really about countries exporting&amp;#x2F;not exporting. These vaccine deals are with private companies who produce their product around the world. Just because vaccines are manufactured in a specific country doesn’t make them property of that country.&lt;p&gt;Whichever country is contractually at the front of the line will have their order fulfilled first&amp;#x2F;according to the terms of the contracts.&lt;p&gt;The EU wasted months negotiating lower prices and then took longer with approvals.&lt;p&gt;There is no good guy or bad guy (at least until the UK or EU blocks exports preventing execution of the private contracts - at that point the country blocking the exports becomes the bad guy).</text></item><item><author>gaha</author><text>The EU has exported 41 millionen vaccine doses of which the UK has gotten 8 million so far [1]. Meanwhile, the UK and US do not export any vaccines at all. So just as a back of the envelope calculation, with 41 millionen doeses the EU could have vaccinated an additional 10% of its population, while the UK would have had more than 10% less vaccinatetions without those 8 million. This would not completetly close the gap, but the numbers would be quite different then.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, you can interpret this in a postivie way: the EU is trying to be good and is sharing its vaccinations more or less fairly with other countries (for now). However, you can also see it as the EU has no real power at all and is just an easy target to get fooled over by other countries..&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dw.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-eu-not-ready-to-share-covid-vaccines-with-poorer-countries&amp;#x2F;a-56944274&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dw.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-eu-not-ready-to-share-covi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hourislate</author><text>&amp;gt;Whichever country is contractually at the front of the line will have their order fulfilled first&amp;#x2F;according to the terms of the contracts.&lt;p&gt;Tell that to Canada. They were securing doses from day one and still suffered from delayed shipments and now have to contend with countries of manufacture forbidding export. What really pisses me off is that the US Gov had 30 million doses of Astra for several months and it it isn&amp;#x27;t even approved for use. Why hoard it when you can save lives in other countries while you have no intention of using it soon if ever? Sure they might get their approval in May or June but by then I expect the other manufacturers to have ramped up to cover everyone everywhere.</text></comment>