Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

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Mutzo Nutzo said:
I believe that the EU operates a centralized Vaccine and procurement system, (European Commission’s strategy of joint vaccine procurement). All 27 nations signed up to this agreement. Its role is to procure and distribute vaccines to EU countries. It was also the role of the EU as a centralized body to conduct the contract negotiations with the vaccine manufacturers and provide the overall medical safety screening via the EMA.

Whilst the UK and US forged ahead signing contracts with the likes of AZ, Pfizer/Biontech and secured their supplies, the EU stumbled over their own bureaucratic mess as this new centralized procurement agency needed each country to review and sign the respective contracts with the manufacturers. The other stumbling block was price per vaccine. The EU made this their primary focus and it only served to delay the signing of contracts with AZ and Pfizer. So the EU finally signed their vaccine contracts 4 months after the UK and US. To cap it all off the contacts they did sign were flaky, and did not provide enough governance around deliverables.

The EU were late to the party and this resulted in procurement issues which then become distribution problems, which ultimately means that member states are not getting enough vaccines.

The other thing that the EU are responsible for is the amount and level of contradictory stories that keep emerging out of Berlin. AZ is is safe? is it not? Who knows? This communication management is also playing a part in many people across EU member states not taking up their vaccine slots. The EU has mishandled this key element of the vaccine rollout. We now have the EMA saying its safe and Berlin saying hold on its not that safe.

We also now see different member states going their own way and securing deals with manufactures themselves (Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Croatia). So it all looks a bit of a mess right now.

Yes each individual state is responsible for putting needles into their peoples arms, but the EU as a centralized governing body is also responsible.
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How is the EU responsible for the German government’s communication?
 
Billy Dean said:
How is the EU responsible for the German government’s communication?
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Germany is a big player within the EU. On one side you have the EMA saying that AZ is safe to use, on the other hand you have a major influential EU member state saying hang-on its not safe.

The EU's responsibility is to provide vaccine health screening on behalf of the member states. That's what the 27 states signed up for with the EMA as their advocate. So why isn't the EU telling Germany to pipe down? It presents a fractured picture and only serves to dampen confidence.

The EU set out to run the show as a cooperative entity, with the interests of its member states at the forefront, but it appears that each states own national interests are now pushing their way to the surface and it's almost an every man for himself scenario. You have Austria slagging Malta off, you have Malta slagging the EU off, France and Germany striking deals with Putin on the side, Hungary doing deals with China for vaccines.

The EU seems powerless to stop it and it's all descending into a right old mess
 
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Mutzo Nutzo said:
Germany is a big player within the EU. On one side you have the EMA saying that AZ is safe to use, on the other hand you have a major influential EU member state saying hang-on its not safe.

The EU's responsibility is to provide vaccine health screening on behalf of the member states. That's what the 27 states signed up for with the EMA as their advocate. So why isn't the EU telling Germany to pipe down? It presents a fractured picture and only serves to dampen confidence.

The EU set out to run the show as a cooperative entity, with the interests of its member states at the forefront, but it appears that each states own national interests are now pushing their way to the surface and it's almost an every man for himself scenario. You have Austria slagging Malta off, you have Malta slagging the EU off, France and Germany striking deals with Putin on the side, Hungary doing deals with China for vaccines.

The EU seems powerless to stop it and it's all descending into a right old mess
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Re the bold part, if you say so. But most EU countries have their own health regulators that are also reviewing the vaccines AFAIK. Germany, France, Italy, Poland have definitely done their own reviews. Can the EU tell sovereign nations' health regulators what to decide? Does it have that power? Genuine question.
 
peteblue said:
I know you keep writing this Dave, and I would never suggest that there maybe any misrepresentation, but I don’t ever remember seeing any proof of this claim or of the other one of pubs.....
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Financial Times:

Pubs and restaurants take blame for UK’s Covid spike​


Chris Giles and Alice Hancock in London
OCTOBER 8 2020

Health authorities across the UK believe the normalisation of eating out and drinking in pubs has contributed to the UK’s second wave of Covid-19, triggering howls of rage from the battered hospitality sector, which says there is little proof they are responsible for spreading the virus. However, the dispute over the evidence is unlikely to stop England’s politicians following Scotland’s lead in shutting pubs and restaurants in the north of England from next week — a move likely to coincide with the end of Britain’s post-lockdown economic recovery. The hospitality sector was closed from late March to early July and started to operate initially at low capacity during the summer. This was given a shot in the arm with chancellor Rishi Sunak’s ‘eat out to help out’ discounts in August and spending in the sector remained strong in September. But the implications of that scheme for the spread of the disease may only be emerging now. In its weekly surveillance reports, Public Health England has noted that for those testing positive, “eating out was the most commonly reported activity in the two to seven days prior to symptom onset”. Gregor Smith, Scotland’s chief medical officer, meanwhile, said this week that Scotland’s case numbers had been falling but began to rise about three weeks after hospitality reopened. “While this cannot be entirely attributed to hospitality, it is likely to have played a significant role,” he said. As in England, those testing positive told contact tracers that about a quarter had recently been in pubs or restaurants, adding to the risk of onward spread between households, Mr Smith said, though he admitted that none of the evidence presented was “a measure of causation”. The circumstantial rather than direct evidence of the role of hospitality in the UK’s coronavirus second wave has led to mixed messaging among ministers and disputes from the industry itself. While Boris Johnson, prime minister, said at the weekend the ‘eat out to help out’ scheme “may have helped to spread the virus” and Matt Hancock, health secretary, said the highest “incidence of likely transmission . . . is unfortunately hospitality,” Mr Sunak has played down the importance of pubs and restaurants in the second wave. Diners enjoy eating outside in London’s Soho district in September © Henry Nicholls/Reuters With the chancellor’s name plastered on ‘eat out to help out’ adverts over the summer, he insisted the rise in cases, “seems to be more a feature of the virus and the season than anything specific”. Lined up behind Mr Sunak is the hospitality industry, which has furiously denied accusations of its role as a superspreader. Across the sector, bar, pub and restaurant owners have called for hard data to back up the need for a nationwide curfew and local lockdowns. Recommended Payne's Politics podcast32 min listen Coronavirus clampdowns go regional Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said there was “no evidence to support the case that infections are transmitted in hospitality”, pointing out that in areas under more stringent regulations such as Greater Manchester visits to hospitality and footfall had dropped but infections were still rising. Others in the industry have pointed to PHE data that suggest between 3 and 5 per cent of clusters over the past month could be traced back to restaurants or food outlets, while pub operators emphasise how few contact-tracing requests they have had from the NHS. Pub operators emphasise how few contact-tracing requests they have had from the NHS © Justin Tallis/AFP Greene King, which operates more than 2,700 pubs nationally, said it had received 27 test and trace contacts since reopening in July, while the 320-strong pub company Shepherd Neame said it had none. There is little doubt that increasing restrictions on the industry are hurting. The latest consumer spending figures from Fable Data, a consultancy which has access to spending on cards across the UK, suggests spending in the hospitality sector remained high in September, after the August boost, but has begun to fall off. The latest figures show pubs had their worst week of takings up to last Sunday since the first week in August. If UK direct evidence on the spread of the virus is weak, a more damning picture exists in other countries, which have collected data to distinguish between correlation and causation. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control published a comparison of people with symptoms of Covid-19 and previous behaviour split by those testing positive and negative for the disease. Those who had caught coronavirus were twice as likely to have been in bars and restaurants as those testing negative. There was a particularly strong link in establishments where people had not been wearing masks. Along with superspreading incidents in Iceland and Austria, the CDC said, “eating and drinking on-site at locations that offer such options might be important risk factors associated with Sars-Cov-2 infection”. Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at Southampton University, said that in the UK, the “concrete evidence was a little bit thin”, but that was more because everyone was understandably “panicking in a pandemic” rather than setting up studies that would provide proof. “Trying to tease out evidence from noise is not an exact science,” he said, “but based on pragmatic thinking and given what we know about superspreading events . . . pubs and restaurants are where some outbreaks are seeded”.
 
davek said:

​

Financial Times:

Pubs and restaurants take blame for UK’s Covid spike​


Chris Giles and Alice Hancock in London
OCTOBER 8 2020

Health authorities across the UK believe the normalisation of eating out and drinking in pubs has contributed to the UK’s second wave of Covid-19, triggering howls of rage from the battered hospitality sector, which says there is little proof they are responsible for spreading the virus. However, the dispute over the evidence is unlikely to stop England’s politicians following Scotland’s lead in shutting pubs and restaurants in the north of England from next week — a move likely to coincide with the end of Britain’s post-lockdown economic recovery. The hospitality sector was closed from late March to early July and started to operate initially at low capacity during the summer. This was given a shot in the arm with chancellor Rishi Sunak’s ‘eat out to help out’ discounts in August and spending in the sector remained strong in September. But the implications of that scheme for the spread of the disease may only be emerging now. In its weekly surveillance reports, Public Health England has noted that for those testing positive, “eating out was the most commonly reported activity in the two to seven days prior to symptom onset”. Gregor Smith, Scotland’s chief medical officer, meanwhile, said this week that Scotland’s case numbers had been falling but began to rise about three weeks after hospitality reopened. “While this cannot be entirely attributed to hospitality, it is likely to have played a significant role,” he said. As in England, those testing positive told contact tracers that about a quarter had recently been in pubs or restaurants, adding to the risk of onward spread between households, Mr Smith said, though he admitted that none of the evidence presented was “a measure of causation”. The circumstantial rather than direct evidence of the role of hospitality in the UK’s coronavirus second wave has led to mixed messaging among ministers and disputes from the industry itself. While Boris Johnson, prime minister, said at the weekend the ‘eat out to help out’ scheme “may have helped to spread the virus” and Matt Hancock, health secretary, said the highest “incidence of likely transmission . . . is unfortunately hospitality,” Mr Sunak has played down the importance of pubs and restaurants in the second wave. Diners enjoy eating outside in London’s Soho district in September © Henry Nicholls/Reuters With the chancellor’s name plastered on ‘eat out to help out’ adverts over the summer, he insisted the rise in cases, “seems to be more a feature of the virus and the season than anything specific”. Lined up behind Mr Sunak is the hospitality industry, which has furiously denied accusations of its role as a superspreader. Across the sector, bar, pub and restaurant owners have called for hard data to back up the need for a nationwide curfew and local lockdowns. Recommended Payne's Politics podcast32 min listen Coronavirus clampdowns go regional Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said there was “no evidence to support the case that infections are transmitted in hospitality”, pointing out that in areas under more stringent regulations such as Greater Manchester visits to hospitality and footfall had dropped but infections were still rising. Others in the industry have pointed to PHE data that suggest between 3 and 5 per cent of clusters over the past month could be traced back to restaurants or food outlets, while pub operators emphasise how few contact-tracing requests they have had from the NHS. Pub operators emphasise how few contact-tracing requests they have had from the NHS © Justin Tallis/AFP Greene King, which operates more than 2,700 pubs nationally, said it had received 27 test and trace contacts since reopening in July, while the 320-strong pub company Shepherd Neame said it had none. There is little doubt that increasing restrictions on the industry are hurting. The latest consumer spending figures from Fable Data, a consultancy which has access to spending on cards across the UK, suggests spending in the hospitality sector remained high in September, after the August boost, but has begun to fall off. The latest figures show pubs had their worst week of takings up to last Sunday since the first week in August. If UK direct evidence on the spread of the virus is weak, a more damning picture exists in other countries, which have collected data to distinguish between correlation and causation. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control published a comparison of people with symptoms of Covid-19 and previous behaviour split by those testing positive and negative for the disease. Those who had caught coronavirus were twice as likely to have been in bars and restaurants as those testing negative. There was a particularly strong link in establishments where people had not been wearing masks. Along with superspreading incidents in Iceland and Austria, the CDC said, “eating and drinking on-site at locations that offer such options might be important risk factors associated with Sars-Cov-2 infection”. Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at Southampton University, said that in the UK, the “concrete evidence was a little bit thin”, but that was more because everyone was understandably “panicking in a pandemic” rather than setting up studies that would provide proof. “Trying to tease out evidence from noise is not an exact science,” he said, “but based on pragmatic thinking and given what we know about superspreading events . . . pubs and restaurants are where some outbreaks are seeded”.
Click to expand...

“Mr Smith said, though he admitted that none of the evidence presented was “a measure of causation”. The circumstantial rather than direct evidence of the role of hospitality in the UK’s coronavirus second wave has led to mixed messaging among ministers and disputes from the industry itself”....
 
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