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© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Australia asks EU to stop blocking vaccine exports
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yoshisan88
Australia has done much much better in the fight against Covid-19 than Russia. Russia can keep the vaccine for their citizens who are the ones that needs the vaccine. By the way, why is Russia shipping vaccine to other countries when many of its own people are not yet vaccinated?
Also FYI, from online news:
First locally made AstraZeneca COVID vaccine doses rolling out from March 22
The first locally produced doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines will be administered in just over a fortnight.
Speaking after a meeting of National Cabinet, Federal Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy said the CSL facility in Melbourne was on track to deliver the first batch of doses in the week starting on March 22.
"A million doses-plus a week, which gives us the capacity to really ramp up and broadly vaccinate our population as quickly as possible," he said.
itsonlyrocknroll
Every business has to honor their contractual obligations.
The EU, must or should be fully aware of this fact.
The commission is forever insisting member states pay strict attention to Treaty law.
So if the Australian Government has placed orders for vaccines, with time stipulations, honor the contract.
Antiquesaving
EU is playing games again.
This is just a partial list of countries the EU blocked Vaccine exports to:
Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay,"
And there are far more.
I would not be surprised to see Australia decide to do like Canada and request it's Covax share.
Under the Covax agreement the EU cannot block the export no matter what. This is why Canada decided it would take it's share now as the EU was playing games blocking exports now it is Australia's turn.
And don't blame AZ because the EU has blocked both Pfizer and Moderna exports as well.
SandyBeachHeaven
Goto power has a monopoly on the vaccines. Don’t worry !
Flute
@Antiquesaving
Any source for your claim ?
As for example :
South Africa is provided Astra vaccine by India and secured Pfizzer vaccine only from the 2nd quarter of the year.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/south-africa-delivery-covid-19-vaccines-75608564
China is producing its own vaccines.
Japan got more that 1 million doses over 3 delivery sleeping somewhere recently as reported in news here.
UK and US have their own production facilities.
Mexico got Astra from India, Pfizzer from Belgium but Pfizzer delayed because of its factory problem and made a deal for Sputnik :
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/14/mexico-gets-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-shipment-from-india
https://health.wusf.usf.edu/npr-health/2021-02-09/mexicos-ambitious-covid-19-vaccination-strategy-falls-into-disarray.
Several countries on the list are also depending on Covax which you said was not blocked. And one should be happy that more rich countries are willing to shoulder Covax, thus making distribution fairer.
Already said, there are problem on supply chain :
https://www.dw.com/en/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-oxford/a-56427963
As long as companies agree to be fair in sharing the burden, the export go on, ask Pfizzer. Does an around 50% cut sound like Astra is going for the fair sharing of the burden ? They, as of now, failed to prove it. Australia is unfortunately in the middle of a fight between a major company profit oriented and a political instance not going to let it have its way. Hope, things got solved quickly.
So far UE granted 174 export authorization for 30 countries. not sure of the amount of doses, we have see up to around 500000 for Japan but also lower ones, so ...
https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/france-backs-italy-on-vaccine-export-ban-after-australian-shipment-stopped-ng-b881814091z
For the people interested , the review of system in place :
https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2021/february/tradoc_159437.pdf
There is a link to the FAQ which include countries not affected :
https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2021/february/tradoc_159414.pdf
I am starting to seriously wonder if your problem is that Europe still got some vaccine when you think they should just export 100% of their production until everyone else got vaccinated. There is a limit to the joke.