On 29/03/2021 17:38, Fredxx wrote:
....
Are you saying the EU only authorised a first purchase mid November
2020? That doesn't give much time to have production up and running, ie
within a month.

The ESI was activated in April 2020*. That authorised payment to be made
for advance orders up to the quantities given above. The contract raised
on 11 November 2020 was a confirmation that the first 300 million of the
Pfizer provisionally ordered vaccine doses would be taken by the EU. The
vaccine developers had had the money many months earlier.

* Just over £31 million from the ESI went to the UK to assist with its
vaccine programme.

I also thought that in December the UK had approved the Pfizer vaccine
so that the lateness in ordering and supply issues may well be evident
by the procrastination within the EU over approval.

AIUI the main problem was that several sites, including the AstraZenica
sites in Europe, had trouble getting their production working properly.

I have worked with vaccine manufacturers during my decades in the
medical device supply industry and know it is more an art than a
science. The people I knew had to get the right concentration by mixing
different batches, some that had come out stronger than required and
some that had come out weaker. If they didn't grow enough of both, there
would be shortages.

After all they would
have had access to the same data as the UK.

Which is why I have been saying all along that the only difference
between the UK and the EU was that the UK regulators got the job done
faster.



--
Colin Bignell