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Comment by est31 | Hacker News Reader

Is that the real reason? In times of crisis one must be wary of propaganda. AstraZeneca has recently announced they'd deliver even less to the EU because of Italy's interception of the delivery headed to Australia [0]... Europe having to halt the vaccinations with AstraZeneca due to none being in stock makes europe lose far more face than halting them because of quality concerns...

[0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/astrazeneca-warns-europe-of-lar...

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The Paul Ehrlich Institut is an independent scientific institute, who make suggestions based on science.

Of course they are influenced by what they see in the news and questions by the government, but aren't a political player.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich_Institute

> The Paul Ehrlich Institute (German: Paul-Ehrlich-Institut – Bundesinstitut für Impfstoffe und biomedizinische Arzneimittel, PEI) is a German research institution and medical regulatory body, and is the German federal institute for vaccines and biomedicines. It is a federal agency and subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Health.

They are hopefully scientific, but they are definitely not independent, not even by name.

It is, according to the law (Gesetz über das Bundesinstitut für Impfstoffe und biomedizinische Arzneimittel) a "selbstständige Bundesbehörde" and true, it is not independent as a judge and not independent as public broadcasters, but its not a mere department of the ministry directly tied to the political will of the minister, but bound to its task by law.

Where does it say that AstraZeneca are delivering less because of Italy's interception of vaccines?

> AstraZeneca on Friday said unspecified export restrictions now rendered plans to bring in large amounts of doses made outside Europe unlikely. It said it now expects to provide 100 million doses to the EU in the first half of this year, down from earlier commitments of around 270 million.

> bring in large amounts of doses made outside Europe unlikely

I assume this is referring to the US export ban. It definitely isn't referring to Italy.

Australia also likely won't be looking to export theirs now, until their whole country is immunized. They are targetting to produce 100 million doses by the end of the year.

All of this over the 3.8 million doses they bought, and were intercepted and taken by Italy (whose export control already reduced the shipment size to 780k doses).

Export restrictions by other countries, from vaccines themselves to substances needed. Pretty sure you got it wrong.

Hmmm you might have a point. That way of reading it is way more amicable. Thanks.

It doesn't.

> AstraZeneca on Friday said unspecified export restrictions now rendered plans to bring in large amounts of doses made outside Europe unlikely.

This suggests that countries outside the EU have imposed export restrictions that contribute to the vaccine shortage.

There is also a Dutch manufacturing plant which is not being utilized for production because AZ didn't get approvals yet.

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