thirdwave

There is a temporal link between vaccination and occurrence of the condition that merits investigation-which is why it is being investigated. For a fit and well 30 year old male in the UK, the risk of dying from CoviD is 1:125000 so 1:20000 risk of developing myocarditis from vaccination may not be one worth taking

So would I and I speak as someone who had both Pfizer shots at the beginning of the year. But I wonder what Europe's response to this would be considering the risks here are much higher than with AZ for the under 30 cohort and that too with a vaccine that costs 10x Edit: As for it being a non serious event, I'd much rather a one off thrombotic event than myocarditis with potential long term consequences for cardiac function

Truism that doesn't quite apply in this case. The risk of death or serious injury from CoviD in 18-30/40 y.o. is very low, far lower than the 1 in 20000 risk of myocarditis from the vaccine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9513123/Israel-investigates-Pfizer-vaccine-recipients-reported-inflammation-heart-62-cases.html#article-9513123 Worth pointing out Israel is the only country to have vaccinated the young in enough numbers to pick up this safety signal. It would be interesting to see if this is replicated in the US now that vaccination has been extended to all over 16s. 1 in 20000 in 18-30s is a far higher risk than that for CSVT associated with AZ. Looking forward to the clamour among EU countries to ban Pfizer on the back of this...

No.The EU is threatening to block exports of Pfizer, not AZ vaccines- and the proposed restrictions cover quite a few countries in addition to the UK, for instance Canada and Oz which are expecting deliveries of Pfizer vaccines from its Belgium plant. I don't believe the UK has demanded that AZ divert their EU stock to the UK and, contrary to EU claims, no evidence has emerged to suggest this has happened till date.

The UK will be within its rights to do so if it's part of its contract with AZ- which is what the UK (and AZ's CEO) have claimed. All this really needs to be put in front of a court to pass judgement after studying both contracts. This however does not give the EU the right to interfere with a totally unrelated contract and commandeer Pfizer doses destined for the UK unless EU's own contract with Pfizer gave it first refusal on EU production (not even the EU has claimed this is the case) This is the key difference between the UK's and EU's position on this matter.

The article contains quotes attributed to EU officials mooting such a ban. There are also several references to Pfizer in this context. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-29/eu-sets-vaccine-export-controls-risking-global-battle-for-doses This Bloomberg article says much the same. No one's is saying a ban has been introduced but that is the direction of travel- the EU couldn't make it's intentions any clearer. You are clearly a clever guy so if you still claim I'm peddling 'fake news', we'll have to leave it at that and move on.

I give up

Check what Chavez did to the oil industry in 1999.

That may well be part of AZ's contract with the UK- the French CEO of AZ has said as much. The proper course of action would be for the EU to go to court, demand disclosure of the AZ-UK contract and hold AZ to its commitments. What the EU doing instead is turning this into a confrontation with the UK and threatening to block exports by Pfizer, which has nothing to do with this dispute. The UK's and EU's actions are not really comparable- doing so represents the basic flaw in the Europhile arguement around this issue

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/28/belgium-launches-investigation-of-astrazeneca-vaccine-plant Please read the article in its entirety.

I was agreeing with Dug's assertion that this is a commercial dispute between the EU and AZ. It's the EU that appears to have escalated this into a UK-EU standoff.. Don't think Gove has said anything to create this impression

I'm not a contract law expert but unless you present evidence to the contrary, it'd be inclined to believe that contracts would be protected in most circumstances (unless there are grave public health or national security implications) As for Gove's comments, he may be quoting from the UK-AZ contract- who knows. Once again, this should be decided via a proper judicial process rather than through hostile, disproportionate and asymmetrical actions.

German official sources have briefed the media along these lines on several occasions in the past few days- just google it. The EU has been very clear that the purpose of the export transparency mechanism is to secure it's own supplies. It has also issued an export exemption list which excludes many anglophone countries including Australia. The fact that Australia has raised a grievance with the WHO around this would suggest to me that it feels it's order for primarily Pfizer shots is threatened.

Apples and oranges. If the EU prevents Pfizer from exporting it's vaccine to the UK under the terms of an existing commercial contract and demands that the company sells the vaccine to the EU instead, it does constitute confiscation of commercial property. This is how communist autocracies (like Venezuela under Chavismo) operate. The export bans you cite as a lame defence of EU's actions would most likely apply prospectively- I'm sure existing contracts will be protected in such scenarios.