The two ‘v’s that could derail Britain’s turbocharged recovery Business

The UK has already dealt just over 50% of the adult population at least once, a fantastic achievement. But he only managed to do this by widening the gap between the first and second dose, allowing many more people to receive at least one dose than not. The performances against other countries do not seem so impressive on the full schedule of the two jabs. It also means that the rate of the first vaccinations will automatically slow down as the second doses begin to absorb the available supply.

This supply is in some way under threat, with the EU threatening to block exports of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines from EU factories to the UK market. It seems almost impossible to get to the bottom of what is really going on here.

Can it be true, for example, that the UK has the first information on all production of the Astra vaccine, regardless of where it is produced? The general idea about this has long been that each factory is meant to meet the demands of each market, so there are separate regional factories for UK, EU, US and the world. in development.

Theoretically, therefore, it should not make a difference for the UK if the EU bans Astra from exporting to the UK market. It could, however, make a difference in the supply of the vaccine produced by Pfizer, which satisfies the entire European market, including the United Kingdom, from factories in the EU. But that too would be complicated as its vaccine production relies on an ingredient supplied by the UK. Vaccine supply chains are strongly integrated at the international level.

Whatever the truth, some sort of UK supply deficit is clearly in the offing. The Serum Institute of India is also slowing the promised supplies on the British market of the Astra vaccine. According to some estimates, these shortcomings could delay the planned rollout of vaccines in the UK by two months. The British government is pretending to be convinced that this will not happen. We’ll see.