Citizens. Welcome to the program the president of the European Commission ursula fund a line is urging drug maker astra zeneca to stick to commitments to supply the e. U. With its 1000. 00 vaccine the british Swedish Company has said its cutting the number of doses by 60 percent because of production problems astra zeneca also says it is not contractually obliged to deliver but funnel line said the contract is Crystal Clear many e. U. Member states are still failing to meet their vaccination targets. Correspondent. In brussels so the president of the e. U. Commission says their contract is Crystal Clear what does it say about the livery. Look ive been looking into this contract which i have here with me for the past couple of hours and i have to tell you its its a little bit difficult to tell what it says on the delivery schedule because if you go through the Relevant Pages they they look like this so a lot of the parts are blackened out and so they do not provide the Crystal Clear few that of course the commission has on this seeing that they have the full contract you can read a bit i have figured out from the bookmarks but even that hasnt given me the yet the inside it would take from the perspective of the commission however one thing is Crystal Clear a lot there are a lot of Unanswered Questions why the delivery is not being taking place seeing that astra zeneca is a Close Company that should cater to all their clients and europe is the biggest wind garrick this seems to be an issue with the fact that britain signed a contract with as or zeneca months before the e. U. Did does this give them delivery priority. Now that is quite interesting and if you look at page 23 of the contract it makes quite clear here that theres no reference to it to other agreements and the argument of the commission is that had there been a priority off contracts or indeed a hierarchy of factories that should have been marked in this contract. And so the argument of the commission is the u. K. Plans are not optional plods they they could start best plans as as a back up but the contract is quite clear here that it says. It this is what impedes the complete fulfillment of its obligations so its what what you can take away from this contract is that theres been no other promises made at least had there been promises made to other. Come to countries that should have been marked in this contract to understood. In brussels for us thank you very much. We can now bring in Jacob Kirkegaard from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Welcome to d. W. Sir is the e. U. Putting the blame on astra zeneca for its own inefficiencies in meeting vaccination targets. I mean im not a contract lawyer so im not really able to say whether or not this partially redacted contract says one thing or the other but i think it is clear that you know relative to other countries the United States the u. K. Israel its issue of the e. U. Signed contracts relatively later and f. P. S. To have been more price conscious than these other large potential buyers which like it or not in a market economy means that if astra zeneca or other companies for that matter have somewhat over promised if you like that then if these Country Companies are forced to thin decide which country over each contract be partially reneged on theyre likely to renege on the one that has the lowest price so this may not be so relevant in that his best resenting it because its nonprofit and all that but overall i think we should still be clear that you know this is a marathon this is not a sprint and certainly the worst possible outcome from this ordeal this Current Situation this this and coming weeks is if the e. U. Goes ahead and sort of has protectionism and baxi nationalism and sort of 4 bits exports of vaccines and the like because that will send a terrible signal to the rest of the world and its almost certainly to rebound back on the e. U. Itself in the coming weeks months if not years leading to automated or medium term Production Capacity also in the us self so in the midst of this marathon as you put it what is the u. K. Governments role in this im asking because the the rallies between the e. U. An ass resented by the drug maker seems to favor london over brussels. Well i mean i think the role of the london government is to stay out of it this is a contractual dispute between a private company and the e. U. And you know from the perspective of the British Government of course they are well aware that if the e. U. Were to resort to back seen protectionism or nationalism or whatever you want to call it export restrictions in the future one of the main victims of that would be to u. K. Going forward so you know it they they they will undoubtedly try to stay out of this compete whether the British Press will of course thats a different matter we only have about 30 seconds left sir but let me ask you this what about the point that the british plants producing the vaccine seem to be functioning well whereas there are production delays at european plants. But again im not privy to why that might be there may be something to do with the chime in of the start of a production and ultimately piece approval of various vaccines and the like i dont know but i again as i said i think the worst possible outcome here would beat that any country least of all the e. U. Which has said that it wants to promote a global vaccination drive a Global Solution to this pandemic problem were to resort to export controls and vaccine nationalism clearly many questions many answers still waiting to be delivered Jacob Kirkegaard really appreciate your time with the Peterson Institute for International Economics thank you sir. I pleasure results from large scale trials in the u. K. As a gesture another new vaccine could soon be available Us Pharmaceutical Company know that x. Has said its corona virus vaccine given in 2 doses is almost 90 percent effective the firm has applied for Regulatory Approval in the u. K. Scientists began walking on a short one year ago rapid progress meant it wasnt long before human trials were underway no efficacy tests have shown the hard work has paid off with a vaccine that is 89 percent effective even against a new uki variant of the virus. News that comes through is that there is slightly Different Levels of sea against the different strains of the variant so youve been hearing about this little surprise but it is just a little message that were all going to see some degree of variation of protection against these variants a separate trial in south africa. Just under 50 percent effective against the new variant there novak says its already working on a bush to try and improve the. British Prime MinisterBoris Johnson welcomed the Headline News and said the u. K. Had 16000000 doses. And has ordered 200000000 its the 4th vaccine to seek approval from western regulators. Are not expected to be ready until later this year. In newcastle england welcome to. Another vaccine great news obviously what else can you tell us. I think the shot itself is actually a 3rd if you like in terms of effect. And the size of. It is actually requiring a lot less with the cost to the cost of transportation of storage so this is fantastic in years weve also literally heard at the last hour that the johnson and johnson boxing trial runs out i house comparable effect to the no box boxy the pfizer and. Seems critical of this once us a single shot boxing but there is also some moral sobering news for people like myself in this yes they expect scenes will all apparently work to keep us out of hospital of severe disease or death potentially. Against the current variant of the emerging variants. Couldnt possibly you know try and draw this if you wanted to fishley the j. J. Vaccine cert 57 percent think the c i guess the variant arose from south africa. And the you know of showed 60 percent efficiency and they all work the same way if you get the spike protein of the virus now what this means is sooner rather than later were going to need updates on these vaccines and because transmission is so prominent why the risk that the virus may. Be able to overcome these folks increases very very dramatically and we have to really start thinking about what we can do to prevent that from happening thats so so so so lets dive a little deeper into that because a lot of people been hearing about this new variant now for for quite some days should they essentially be worried that its only 350 or 60 percent as you put it effective against the variant. So in itself the vaccines will protect roughly 60 percent of people from these new variants from south africa and probably brazil as well as the 3 variants that the roser that u. K. That won the roses south africa on the russian versus. The u. K. One is marked out of the other was actually more dangerous we know from studies that were just it done in germany even with the original corona virus the vaccines do not seem to protect from transmission so the virus will happily hope around i will get vaccinated my son or my wife might get the virus from me if i get exposed to it and that gives the virus the opportunity to evolve resist stuff how we do it in the law so if not the petri dishes become the whole planet as you can imagine the risk of that happening so a lot higher than so many of us were would you actually say you know what we really need to start thinking like were thinking exactly a year ago we need to back down the hatches and stop the transmission as fast as possible because otherwise well have another pandemic inside another pandemic where we want to be in the next few weeks understood surface moscows ryall or just at North University in newcastle england appreciate your time youre welcome heres a look at some of the other developments in the pandemic the makers of russias sputnik the vaccine say they can provide 100000000 doses to the e. U. Hungary is the only country in the b. P. Block to have approved the russian jap mexico has passed indian having the 3rd highest death toll more than 155000 have died there and the United Nations has called 2020 the worst year interest in history global losses topped one trillion euro. The United Nations says distribution of covert 1000 banks eans is a global emergency secretary general antonio terrors calculates that more than 70000000 doses have been administered worldwide but fewer than 20000 in africa who terrorise says every nation has a duty to protect its own people but the rest of the world must not be neglected this is a Global Crisis c. V. Is fady you get us all myths about Fair Distribution not only about money when you flog a fund it. Fair access to corona virus vaccines around the globe thats what the European Union promised the world even before the 1st vaccine was approved the e. U. Has invested heavily in research and development and Member States have put millions into helping poor nations acquire vaccines in the future but as the world scrambles to produce and distribute enough jabs in the end it seems europe come 1st if you cant help thats fine run does former Health Minister an e. S. B. On while want tells me but then dont cast yourself as a savior be frank and say my people 1st dont lie to me and say we will be quote with so so because we start to prepare that we uplift it but we just see that youre not really and. While the coronavirus continues to spread rapidly in africa only few countries there have begun immunizing their citizens egypt ordered vaccines from china for example and guinea is rolling out a russian vaccine these 2 world powers were quick of the market then you they are practicing vaccine diplomacy for 2 army did they are Foreign Policy object but in the meantime we need to look at the op comes why you know youve read our. Meeting