Astra and the EU: a fundamental misunderstanding about how the modern world works
Lockdowns and vaccines: the double botch?
Astra Zeneca vs The EU: facts and conjecture
Chris Johns
The bust-up between the EU and Astra Zeneca has become explosive. All of us seem to have strong opinions, but few, if any, of us have access to all the facts. Contract law; regulatory approval delays; Macron (notably but not exclusively) trashing the efficacy of the vaccine; multiple suspensions of the jabs because of safety (blood clot) concerns; threats of export bans: all have combined to produce confusion, political tensions and vaccine hesitancy and vaccine delay (if not ammunition for anti-vax wing-nuts). Let’s take a look at these.
Redacted and (reputedly) full versions of Astra’s contract with the EU have appeared in the public domain but lawyers say there are still arguments about where the truth - and legal obligation - begins and ends. How and when the contract between the EU and Astra Zeneca was signed is still surrounded in controversy. An extensive and well-sourced account is here. Another, from an American perspective is here.
Different accounts have emerged about when the EU signed its deal. Pascal Soirot, CEO of Astra Zeneca, has been quoted saying the UK signed its contract fully three months before the EU. All bar a couple of the many accounts I have read have repeated this version of events - with the added narrative that the EU took its time because it was more concerned than the UK (or US) about the price of the vaccine and product liability (being sued in case something goes wrong).
In a Twitter thread, here, one journalist has contested the commonly accepted version of contract signing dates and the associated narrative. I’ll return to this alternative history shortly.
This is the version of events that has gained the widest acceptance: “the bloc’s decisions to prioritise process over speed and to put solidarity between EU countries ahead of giving individual governments more room to manoeuvre have been criticised for holding back the coronavirus response” (politico.eu, Jan 27th).
It’s that point about process that gets most seasoned EU watchers nodding. Whatever the debate about the strengths and weaknesses of the EU (this is not an argument about Brexit ideology!) we know that the EU is all about process - on steroids.
If the EU has a raison d’être it is about law and process: bureaucracy writ large. And that is both a strength and weakness. It serves the bloc well in some instances but, in the view of many, including this journalist, it was exactly the wrong strategy to deploy in the teeth of a pandemic. But, to mount a (weak) defence of the EU, it is the only way it knows.
It’s also, in part, a story about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Yes, the EU was slow, bureaucratic and, I would argue, ultimately incompetent. But there were some good intentions. There was a genuine belief that solidarity across 27 nations was a virtuous objective in its own right and that such approach would also produce a better outcome - more vaccines more quickly. This was an obvious error - at least relative to how quick other countries have been.
One of the first lessons that any economics student learns is that there are two ways to ration anything in less than infinite supply: you either pay up or get in a queue. Somebody should have worked that out in Brussels.
For all of the ins and outs of who did what when, this is an iron law: pay up or get in line. And if you don’t want to pay up - the EU has actually been very successful in negotiating low vaccine prices - you will be at the back of the line.
What about that Soirot claim, and conventional wisdom, that the UK simply signed up three months earlier than the EU? And, as a result, got ahead in the queue? Or, as is counter-claimed, that this is simply wrong? The truth, as ever, is nuanced.
It turns out, according to one report for example, that something was indeed signed between the EU and Astra Zeneca one day earlier (August 28) than a deal signed between the UK and Astra Zeneca.
But this wasn’t the real deal: that one was struck three months earlier, which tied down the supply chain for the vaccine’s delivery in the UK. That point about the supply chain is critical: the UK got an end-to-end deal, the EU just looked for a vaccine delivery promise and did not pay as much attention to the supply chain.
£65m of UK taxpayer money was stumped up early to help Oxford University put a production plan together, something that, according to Politico, began a complicated process that culminated in that August signing - but that was a contract that had, de facto, been in place much earlier.
The supply chain bits of the contract explain in part, if not wholly, the current row: the UK was precise about where it would source the vaccines (no matter where they were to be produced) while the EU was more vague and relied on ‘best efforts’. UK supply was sorted well before the the EU first put pen to paper with Astra Zeneca.
There were two legal systems underlying the two contracts, one UK, one Belgian. While differing versions of timelines now abound, there are also differing interpretations of law. I am not a lawyer so will not pretend to understand all of these. But if I had agreed to sell my Ferrari to two different people (inadvertently or otherwise), I would deliver it to the person who had the tighter, more easily understood, contract. I’d also keep an eye on which customer had the biggest chance of mounting a successful legal action against me.
So, it’s complicated. Different people will put different legal spin on this, and there will be differing perspectives on how well Astra Zeneca has behaved.
Alternatively, there might (and this is speculation on my part) be a simple explanation: Astra Zeneca thought it could produce all the contracted vaccines and ended up with manufacturing delays it did not anticipate. It over-promised and had to under-deliver.
The only choice it faced was over which customer to disappoint.
So far, this has been a narrow discussion about timelines, history and contract law. Once politicians got involved things went from bad to worse.
President Macron and others questioned the efficacy of the vaccine, different countries initially restricted its availability (not allowing it to be given to older age groups) and then totally restricted it because of blood clot fears. Some Scandinavian countries have still banned the jab, notwithstanding all of the accumulated evidence about both its safety and efficacy (see the recent successful trial data in the US for example) and the positive backing of the European Medicines Agency. A lot of these decisions were most definitely not based on ‘the science’.
Medics pointed out that while there was a fig-leaf of cover for the initial decision about the over 65s (lack of data rather than the presence of bad data), knowledge of how vaccines work in general should have led to the conclusion that the risk was worth taking. If a vaccine works across a wide range of age groups, it will probably work over all age groups. Over 65s are the most vulnerable; there might be lower efficacy but almost certainly not no efficacy.
Efficacy comes in a number of guises. The focus on whether or not the vaccinated get covid is one thing: equally important is hospitalisation and death. All of the evidence is that all of the vaccines prevent acute illness to an astonishing extent, often 100%.
First they complained about the supply of the vaccine, then they say they didn’t want it. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that it’s all got all become a tad political. The British certainly think so: they ask, ‘would Macron have raises doubts and then banned it if it had been a French vaccine?’
It shouldn’t, and doesn’t deserve to, but it has all become very Brexity. At least in the UK where nearly all commentators, not just in the tabloid press, think the EU’s vaccine response has been an end-to-end disaster.
The current flailing around is, in part at least, an attempt to deflect blame for the EU’s botched vaccine strategy. To my mind, the case for the prosecution is proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Speed was always going to be of the essence with vaccines and the pandemic. The pressure on Astra Zeneca is now being raised because the EU is desperate. It’s a vaccine that, from the evidence in the UK, works. At least against the version of the virus that is circulating in the UK, if not on other variants. It really is a sprint - a long one for sure. Irish and other medical officials who said, justifying the slow rollout, ‘it’s a marathon not a sprint’ were simply wrong.
If there is to be a political reckoning for that botched vaccine deployment it’s important to make sure the mud sticks to someone else.
The other favourite saying of some officials who should know better is that ‘the precautionary principle applies’. In a pandemic, it does not. The decision to suspend vaccination will, in my view, almost certainly have cost lives.
This is all very topical and, for the unvaccinated, urgent. But in a few weeks the supply row will become moot: pretty soon, supply chains will be producing vast quantities of vaccine. At least for the rich world. There will be wobbles along the way but the prize is in sight.
Beware politicians who don’t want the delays, their mistakes, their incompetence, to deny them the glow of success currently attaching, fairly or unfairly, to Boris Johnson.
Some EU countries (cough) risk being accused of a double botch. Whatever its merits, the strategy has been clear: lockdown until everyone is vaccinated. Some have messed up both lockdown and vaccination. According to the Oxford lockdown stringency index, Ireland has had the toughest set of lockdown restrictions in the world. And the medical authorities are clearly worried that lockdown hasn’t worked. I’d add that there hasn’t been enough questioning over that toughest lockdown, whether lessons have been learned - ‘following the science’.
There were nuances: different risks weren’t allowed for; different and more extensive public health messaging should have happened. Relatively few people catch Covid outdoors. The importance of ventilation. What on earth happened to test, trace and isolate? I could go on. Whichever way you look at all of this, it’s become, and will remain, very political.