"Fredxx" wrote in message
...
On 01/04/2021 10:13, nightjar wrote:
On 30/03/2021 21:20, Fredxx wrote:
...
As you say transparency is lacking but this publication:
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3226 "he UK government said that
the deals were commercially sensitive and would not say what it had paid
up front or whether it would get any money back if the vaccines did not
work."

"Has the UK pre-ordered a vaccine or drug before its approval before?
No, this is a first."..

I am surprised at that. Seasonal flu vaccine is different every year and
has to be approved anew every year. The vaccine has to be grown after the
WHO has decided which strains are likely to be a problem next season.
That takes a few months, after which they have to go through the approval
process. Even allowing for the fact that there is a well-proven fast
track approval process for seasonal flu vaccine, that can't leave a lot
of time to place orders for the next flu season.

To be honest I was too. I only learnt this from a couple of Radio articles
some time ago

Pretty sure I saw it on the BBC RSS feed when it happened.

and was surprised that the UK government had taken the risk.

I wasnt, it did make sense to do it that way
given the problem this virus is and with
vaccination the only real long term fix for it.

It's as if they wanted to keep things quiet, just in case they went wrong.

No evidence of that given that it was announced when they did it.

As exampled by the grief the government has got over face masks that
allegedly can't be used, it's all the more surprising the government chose
to spend money on something that could have been an utter waste of
resources.

Yes, but it did make sense given the virus is such a problem.