Not to mention that President Macron came out with some genuinely anti vaxer statements on 29th Jan which are completely false
> “The real problem with AstraZeneca is that it doesn't perform as we expected. (…) Everything suggests that it is almost ineffective on people over 65. "
Anyone who has paid attention to the response around the failure of the EU vaccination program knows this is pretty standard diversionary politics.
Thanks for further damaging safety/credibility of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the public’s for no good reason. It’s obvious that this was completely political act. Wasn’t Macron spreading the rumor just a few weeks ago that the vaccine isn’t effective for those 65 and older?
> IIRC they said AstraZeneca vaccine is not very effective.
I don't know if this is what the OP was referring to, as this is not the EU themselves:
- French president Emmanuel Macron claimed that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was "quasi-ineffective" for over-65s, hours before it was approved by regulators for use on all adults in the EU.
- The German newspaper Handelsblatt that suggested the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was 8% effective among over 65s, which was a misunderstanding and the German health ministry challenged it.
I suspect both of the above had an impact on public perception, especially in France, but neither were actually the EU saying it. One was silly and the other a mistake.
Ursula von der Leyen did, however, suggest the UK had compromised safety by approving the AZ so early (even though the MHRA who approved it are generally reckoned to be one of the best medical regulators in the world).
> the EU has literally millions of doses sitting around going unused because citizens won't take it
This is utterly false. The vaccine is being used as quickly as it comes in. As of yesterday, more than 75% of all doses delivered to Germany have been administered. (Source: https://impfdashboard.de/) this includes the slow-down from temporarily halting the use of AstraZeneca.
> What is Macron going to do when he gets loads of this vaccine in Q3? "Never mind that stuff about it not working, please go get vaccinated?". It's Trump level (remember that guy) irresponsibility.
Macron should be piloried for his antivaxxer comments. France has a serious issue with people refusing the vaccine as it is. Not helped by their deliberately complex steps to give it out.
“8% effective in over 65s” from the German press, “quasi-ineffective in over 65s” from Macron, and “I’m not going to take it because I’m 67” from Merkel, all sound like there is some politics involved to be.
The Norwegian cases don’t make any sense statistically. If they were correct, we would have seen 100s of cases in the UK by now.
The EMA notes that no causal link has been confirmed: ‘The fact that someone has had a medical issue or died after vaccination does not necessarily mean that this was caused by the vaccine.
Even though this is the EU, your 'hundreds of thousands died' is not true in any way and is a lie.
You were told it is not an mRNA vaccine which you are ignoring.
"okay, you might get it, but you won't spread it"
This ignores the evolution of the virus itself into variants which changed the efficacy of the vaccines based off of previous variants.
What you're saying here is classic anti-vax stuff. "I'm just skeptical, I don't trust medicine now" while offering up totally false information.
Never mind that vaccines rapidly stopped covid from flooding hospitals killing people and giving them long term problems. Now it's not a problem and the only thing that slowed down progress was people spreading misinformation and lies.
Apparently Macron said that, though I can find very little beyond that one quote. I doubt that's what the vaccination boards (whatever their equivalent of the EMA is) in France said when they recommended limiting vaccination to under <threshold age>, but I haven't really looked it up. The German Stiko was quite clear on it, anyway.
Edit to add: ... and while Stiko, ie. the vaccination board, was quite clear on it, I'm sure there were like two dozen high ranking politicians in Germany in January who either didn't read or were unable to understand the Stiko recommendation and claimed that AZ is known to be ineffective. Most politicians aren't trained scientists, and unfortunately it shows.
> limiting the vaccine to people beyond a certain age (France: 55
Wait - I thought France said AztraZeneca wasn't effective for people over 65? Are they just giving it to people 55-65 therefore? And shouldn't those people have already been vaccinated by now anyway?
"Europe is facing a vaccine disaster. Whereas countries like Israel, Britain and the United States. are quickly moving ahead with vaccinations, the EU is reeling from a string of setbacks. "
this is a lie, per capita EU is not that bad considering that it is a coordinated effort (as opposed to a singular effort by a singular country).
Overall this is Der Spiegel making an opinion article disguised as a news article. Shame on them.
"He also denied suggestions that AstraZeneca might be selling vaccine doses manufactured in the EU to other parts of the world in order to make a bigger profit."
Possibly worse situation in Germany where blatent misinformation was published regarding the Oxford vaccine. Consider the gravity of this given Germany's population is far more "anti-vac" than say the UK.
The EU and Germany/France in particular did a stellar job of destroying the Oxford vaccine's credibility.
Could you please try to provide any sort of sourcing for your statement? You might be right, but how is anyone supposed to take what you say as fact if you don't provide any evidence?
Just being Pro-EU doesn't mean the reporting on this vaccine-drama is inaccurate. It means we probably need to be careful of what they are saying, but doesn't automatically mean it's wrong.
> “The real problem with AstraZeneca is that it doesn't perform as we expected. (…) Everything suggests that it is almost ineffective on people over 65. "
Anyone who has paid attention to the response around the failure of the EU vaccination program knows this is pretty standard diversionary politics.
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