Let's recap: In the month across the imperial basket (USD, GBP, EURO), simultaneous SURGE of SAR-CoV-2 cases AND COVID-19 deaths messed the curves; Pfizer supply chain discipline has collapsed; "experts" have detected purported statistically insignificant cases of SAR-CoV-2 "variants" circulating in S. Africa and UK (initially, more transmissible/not more deadly, now more transmissible AND deadly); purchasing authorities are re-allocating orders of Pfizer-substitute, Phase III trial vaccines which have not been officially licensed for general use.

Moderna says it believes vaccine will work against new variants
"Moderna said it plans to publish data from its tests against the variants on the website bioRxiv."

Moderna making booster shot to fight Covid-19 variants
wide-spectrum sell sheet developing ...

EU locks horns with AstraZeneca on vaccine deliveries amid 'supply shock'
"Under advance purchase deals sealed during the pandemic, the EU makes down-payments to companies to secure doses, with the money expected to be ["]mostly used["] to expand production capacity."

Sweden wants clarity on vaccine doses before paying Pfizer
"To extract the sixth dose, low dead volume syringes or needles, which only retain a low amount of solution after an injection, are needed."

Coronavirus: Europe looks for a way out of vaccine fiasco, 8 manufacturers for about 2B doses, but so far ...

EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said after the talks that the company's answers had not been satisfactory. "The new schedule is not acceptable," she told DW. "The EU prefinanced the development and production of vaccine against COVID-19 with a total of € 2.7 billion ($3.3 billion) and wants to see the return. Which doses have been produced, where and to whom have they been delivered?" she said. "The EU wants the prefinanced and preordered doses. The contract needs to be fully fulfilled."

Sanofi to help produce 100 million Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses

The French company will aim to help supply more than 100 million doses of the vaccine this year from its German plant in Frankfurt, CEO Paul Hudson told Le Figaro newspaper on Tuesday...."Since our main vaccine is a few months late, we asked ourselves how we could be of assistance now," Hudson was quoted as saying

EU seeks access to AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccines produced at UK plants

[AstraZeneca CEO] Soriot said that vaccines meant for the EU were produced in four plants in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy.

But EU Commission officials said on Wednesday that under the contract, the company had also committed to providing vaccines from two factories in Britain. They added the firm had not provided sufficient explanations on why doses could not be shipped from stocks at factories which experienced no production problem, like those in Britain.

< wipes tears >

Can the EU win a case against AstraZeneca? I'm not convinced, Tory barrister dissembling

Both contracts (the one, published previously, which I used as an example in my last post, and today's) are what the EU calls advance purchase agreements, or APAs.

< wipes tears >

What our courts say is that if you wanted the contract to say X, you should have written it as X. If they wanted a strict guarantee, they should have written in a strict guarantee. If parties write they must use best efforts, it means they must use best efforts. Attempts to erode that or increase the burden bump headfirst into this problem.

norms and international law contagion story developing ...

The European Union abruptly reversed a plan to use emergency Brexit measures to restrict exports of COVID-19 vaccines from crossing the Irish border into the United Kingdom https://t.co/KEiX2K2Ckk pic.twitter.com/Ifs9LBb1Ss

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 30, 2021