The European Union plans to block the export of vaccines from the EU to ‘other’ countries; however, curiously there are exemptions from that ban for satellite nations such as Iceland and Norway that ostensibly makes it a ban on exports to Britain. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, the favourite scapegoat of Emperor Macron and falsely vilified in other EU nations, is produced by facilities in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and India. The EU wants to stop exports from the Netherlands’ sub-contractor Halix to Britain as it chooses to misinterpret its own contract with the British/Swedish pharmaceutical giant to claim that it should fulfill its obligation to the EU first. Production delays at the Dutch facility are allegedly the fault of the EU in the first place because it insisted on haggling over price with manufacturers so setting up extra production started late. Britain had signed a deal three months earlier recognising that speed not price was the imperative – dead people do not care about economically disastrous lockdowns. At the time of writing, more than 14 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been delivered to EU member states but only half of those have been used, primarily because of scaremongering by national leaders and total EU incompetence. YouGov polling suggests that more than half of people in France, Germany and Spain would not take this clinically proven vaccine. So the EU is fighting for quicker delivery of something that EU citizens do not want. If the EU decides on a ban, then we should keep doses manufactured in Britain for home distribution together with those supplies being imported from India. As Europeans continue to die perhaps the survivors will rise up against the dictatorship. They never voted for President Ursula von der Leyen (she was not even Germany’s first choice for the role) but she needs to be forced to quit. Last autumn she hailed access to vaccines under development as a “European success story”. Whisper that in France, where Sanofi have yet to get to the test phase with their vaccine. Who would want to start any sort of big enterprise in the EU when the unelected European Commission can come along and decide whether you are allowed to export your goods to the ninety plus per cent of the world’s population that do not live inside the protectionist racket?
In twenty years time when poor sad Lefties are being taxed to pay off this largesse, they of course will not be complaining because the National Health Service is the apple of the public sector eye. We know that the Left favour a system that John Stuart Mill described as “allowing them to put their hands into other people’s pockets for any purpose which they think fit to call a public one”, but those having their pockets emptied should at least be allowed to demand their money is not squandered. Of course, we could have saved £37 billion by not throwing money away on a totally dysfunctional NHS Test and Trace system. Clearly the contracts were pretty poorly worded by some incompetent civil servants because otherwise the government would be demanding our money back or forcing the suppliers to make the system fit for purpose. The reality is probably more like most of the money went in consultants’ fees and they gave Dido Harding’s son £370 to write a mobile app and put it on Play Store.
Viruses do not adhere to trade protectionism or borders. The European Union have created a scenario across much of Europe where their citizens say that they will not take the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine that the EU has procured, so millions of doses are going unused. At the same time, the Brussels Bureaucrats are complaining that AstraZeneca have failed to fulfil their contractual supply commitment; however, the EU contract does not contain any delay punishment clause and the suppliers gave notice that there would be supply delays. The European Commission has no valid argument here because according to AstraZeneca their agreement only requires them to supply the EU from its UK manufacturing base once it has fulfilled its British commitments and its delivery commitment to the EU is quote “our best effort”. Once again, the lowest common denominator EU have dithered and delayed coming to a compromise that suits none of their member states and are blaming anyone but themselves.
We know that lockdowns have not worked. Despite the fact that they do not work and serve no useful purpose, governments keep repeating their mistakes because specialists like the unscientific SAGE in this country cannot back down. While the world, or at least certainly most of Europe, having been playing lockdown for a year, the evidence has been gathered and analysed. When lockdowns first started there was no research or evidence or past precedent to draw upon to prove that it was the right approach. Politicians had to make decisions and they panicked into the wrong ones. The Health Advisory And Recovery Team (HART), a group of 40 scientists, psychologists and statisticians have looked at the evidence and three conclusions have been made: The severity of the lockdown is irrelevant. In Britain we had a severe lockdown whilst in Sweden there was no lockdown and no school closures. In the USA, North Dakota had a lockdown and South Dakota had none. So what explains the comparable outcomes in terms of infections and deaths? Lockdowns are extremely expensive economically. The more damage done to the economy, the longer it is going to take to recover. Also, no account is taken of the non-monetary cost to the economy and society generally. In Britain the death statistics are woefully inaccurate and it is quite possible that dubious statistical methods are being used elsewhere. What these post mortem numbers cannot tell us is the number of people that are going to die in the future from undiagnosed diseases and cancers; and how many people have been forced into poverty that will reduce their life expectancy. These future costs are not going to go away and will result in less productive workforces and massive additional expenditure on healthcare. The third inescapable conclusion is that lockdowns have proven to be a sledgehammer to a nut. All of the evidence shows that the young are the least at risk category. No healthy child has died of Covid-19 in this country yet all the schools have been closed, damaging the future prospects of young people through disrupted education as well as having untold consequences for their mental health, isolated from their peer environment. Little effort was made to identify and protect just the vulnerable because politicians could only see themselves getting the blame for overwhelmed health services. HART think that the bad conclusions are the result of bad decisions and those bad decisions, especially by politicians come from the precautionary principle – the idea that when dealing with an unknown the worst should be assumed. This principle of risk aversion is what is running the European Union (very slowly) to total collapse. In the cause of risk aversion, politicians have destroyed businesses and livelihoods, blighted young people’s life chances; and robbed all of us of basic human contact, something that we have taken for granted for centuries.
- Talks about incompetent Government - Praises Sweden - Blames the EU (of which Sweden is part of) DERPtastic
I see that you are still a totally brain dead Leftie, Life Coaching only those who are similarly deficient. Your response is certainly worthy of the noun derp. I never mentioned the EU in that post but you could not help being a sad Remainer. Who was praising Sweden? I was merely quoting a comparison that had been made: Britain and Sweden have achieved similar outcomes but only one of them has had three lockdowns.
Takes a well constructed post containing 500 words, summarises it into a smiley and 3 bullet points, ends with a derp. The spazification of Not606 in a nutshell.
Sweden deserves all the praise, they didn't sacrifice their young to "save" folk already severely ill. Our society is completely broken and upside down if we sacrifice our young for the old.
But he has purchased a 575" telly whilst people are being made redundant and are homeless and are struggling to feed themselves. Your typical hypocritical lefty loony ignoramus.
I'll have a moment to remember the 65m people whose lives have been completely turned upside down by unaccountable scientists and spineless politicians and the the complicit media.
Care home workers will be forced to take the jab and all adults will have to be tested twice a week to access work or services.
No more 4cham for you pmsl youse guise r mental. they juice don’t want peeps to die. stopping deaths is more important than anything. feel sad that folk don’t want deaths to stop
Claim: "No-lockdown Sweden fared better than the UK" Verdict: It's true that Sweden has had a lower Covid death rate than the UK, but it has fared significantly worse than its neighbours, all of which had tighter initial lockdown restrictions. Many people opposed to Covid restrictions point to the example of Sweden, a country which at the beginning of the pandemic avoided introducing a compulsory lockdown, and instead issued voluntary distancing advice. However, Sweden is a very different country to the UK and has characteristics that may have helped it during the pandemic. It has a lower population density, and a high proportion of people live alone. The capital, Stockholm, is also less of an international transit hub than London. When compared to other Scandinavian countries with similar population profiles, Sweden has fared much worse and recorded a significantly higher number of deaths than its neighbours, all of which have had tougher restrictions during much of the pandemic. It is hard to separate all the factors that might have caused this, but the absence of strict lockdown measures is likely to have contributed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55949640
So it's true then, Sweden done better than us. Meanwhile, we have surrendered our civil liberties, turned the UK into 1970s USSR, all with one of the highest death rates, worst economic hit and harshest/strictest lockdown and now the Govt is going to make it mandatory to take vaccines which the manufacturers don't know if it causes birth defects, makes you infertile and don't know the long-term risks. Because old folk, already at deaths door, are dying from a seasonal respiratory virus? Gimme Sweden all day long.
