Please note that the EU is the _only_ Western country that is currently exporting vaccines to the world. It is the US + UK that are blocking all exports. Even Canada gets its vaccines from the EU, since the US is not sending them any.

So yes, clearly the EU has made mistakes (fully agree with the 1st part of your post), but they had good intentions and it is not as bad as you make it sound.

> It is the US + UK that are blocking all exports

No. The UK government publishes a list of medicines blocked for export[1] and the vaccine isn’t on the list. The EU is solely to blame for being at the back of the queue and are the only state I know of to threaten blocking exports.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Not much difference between using 100% of the locally produced doses locally and blocking it for export. Let's rephrase the question: which countries are the US and UK currently exporting vaccine to and in which quantities?

There’s a huge difference.

If you buy up all a local farmer’s apples for your cider business that is not protectionism. If you arrange for him to effectively become your sole supplier during your busy period that is not protectionism. It’s free trade, that well known opposite.

Hard enough to defend the EU’s protectionism and disorganisation when it’s just food, didn’t think I’d see anyone lining up to do it over vaccines.

That's literally apples and vaccines. In the future you might as well not bother with such pointless digressions.

Back on topic: recently read on CNN that the UK contract's exactly the same as the EU one (best effort) and it was signed later than the EU one even if it was negotiated earlier.

If we combine that with the fact that the UK is not exporting any vaccine and the EU is, including to the UK, it seems to me that the EU was right to be upset with AZ and put pressure on them.

The UK is being selfish and trying to make the EU look like the bad guy.

If you're unwilling to be civil and also unwilling to engage in the argument presented to you - even when made clear via analogy - then I'm not sure why you think anyone will bother to listen to you.

> it seems to me that

You've busted that flush.

The UK is currently not exporting vaccines and there are no countries which are receiving vaccines from the UK.

This is what OP claimed and there is only one argument that can be made against that: a list of countries where the UK or the US is exporting vaccines. By now it should be clear to anyone reading this far that you can't provide that.

> This is what OP claimed

No, this is what the OP claimed:

> It is the US + UK that are blocking all exports

As to this:

> there is only one argument that can be made against that

Again - no, there are other arguments against that, the best being that black and white thinking is a terrible way to analyse reality, the second best being that a list was provided above of medicines blocked for export by the UK and no SARS-COV-2 vaccines are on it.

If the logic evades you further it may help to ask a question: which vaccines are you exporting and is it because you are blocking exports?

That should make it clear that there are more possible reasons for exports not to happen than their being intentionally blocked.

Human beings are able to move past the narrow meaning of specific words and look at the bigger picture, which is that vaccines are neither leaving the UK, nor reaching other countries.

This is the measure that will be used to judge the UK. Whether the vaccine is on some list may be an aggravating factor, but it's otherwise immaterial.

> Human beings are able to move past the narrow meaning of specific words

How convenient. Considering you claimed one thing that was false and are now claiming another thing that is also false but would help make your original claim true because you say so, I think I'll stick with the "narrow" form of interpretation that humans have managed so well with up till now.

> This is the measure that will be used to judge the UK.

Only by those with such strong prejudices that it requires a reimagining of the English language and of logic to help protect them from having to re-examine their notions.

> Whether the vaccine is on some list may be an aggravating factor, but it's otherwise immaterial.

Unless you have evidence of the vaccine being blocked then it is material indeed, however inconvenient that is for you. Feel free to supply actual evidence of the vaccine being blocked that goes beyond "because I say so" and doesn't require pushing words beyond their actual meaning.

Vaccines are neither leaving the UK, nor reaching other countries.

I’m also not going to or leaving the UK and there’s no blocking going on.

Have you noticed the lack of logical necessity in your argument yet?

Yes, and if someone were to wait for you and need you outside the UK you would not be there for them. Just like the vaccine.

Because of prior arrangements, not because of blocking.

I'm glad that you now acknowledge that "there is only one argument" is not so, that is definitely progress.

I've been trying to say for quite a while now that it doesn't matter why something/someone is not present where they should be, if the consequence is people will die. How hard can it be to understand that? :)

Those people are still dead.

Every country they promised to, which is the core of the matter.

It's one thing to be upfront from the start about how you're going to independently produce vaccine for yourself first, ensuring nobody plans on receiving your production.

It's another entirely to promise to export and then later threaten to hold back.

> It's one thing to be upfront from the start about how you're going to independently produce vaccine for yourself first

It's not even that, it's being up front about paying all the local manufacturers to make vaccines for you first.

AZ was/is shipping vaccine from the EU to the UK. That's what the EU considered stopping.

The EU's local manufacturers were supplying non-locally because they had a contract to do that and the EU hadn't set up such a contract, or a contract at all. Usually, if you've not got a contract then you don't get a say, and usually, if other people set up a contract first, they get supplied first, which is why the EU tried to use other means, and because that jeopardises the most fundamental part of all trade - contracts - everyone condemned them. Quite rightly.

Perhaps you were referring to something else?

Ok, and what is the list of those countries and the quantities that they're getting?

Because from your second sentence it read like an awfully short list if nobody's expecting on receiving vaccine.

I agree that they shouldn't have tried to squeeze the last cent out of it, while the pandemic is costing much more.

But would it really have changed things if they didn't?

There wouldn't magically have been more factory capacity and it's not like the UK/US would allow for a substantial part of their capacity to be exported.

Then there was also the unfortunate failure of the Sanofi vaccin and the late arrival of the Jannsen vaccin which was just really bad luck for the EU.