AstraZeneca says it will boost vaccine production to 2M a week | Politico - Jan. 15, 2021 |

Health authorities in the UK have decided to change their distribution strategy, prioritizing giving as many people a first shot as possible.

British drugmaker AstraZeneca says it will boost production of the coronavirus vaccine it developed with Oxford University to two million doses a week by the middle of January.

According to the Times, an unnamed member of the Oxford/AstraZeneca team said production was expected to reach a total of 1 million doses by the end of next week.

"The plan is then to build it up fairly rapidly -- by the third week of January we should get to two million a week," they added.

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Meanwhile, a senior scientist from Oxford University has complained that the country's pharmaceutical manufacturing base is not prepared to handle the roll-out of the jab.

"The government has been completely disinterested in building onshore manufacturing capacity for any of the life-sciences products," said John Bell, professor of medicine at Oxford.

Simple math ... manufacturing rate of 52 million per year to double to 104 million 🚱 ... cutting corners to please the Brexiteers in the City.

Update on the vaccine supply issues & confusing govt lines on this 1/2 @ks_1968 [_link]

— Sarah Rosemary (@SarahRosemary3) January 2, 2021

Contrary to popular belief, congress deliberately constrained powers granted to a POTUS to contract and order supplies for, ahem, national defense in several ways--including but not limited to the Fund balance and "foreign entities"-- so as to limit liabilities and test impairment of the "domestic industrial base". Besides which, the cost of "nationalizing" private property effectively deters seizures as well unilateral prerogative, which appeared to be the case for Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co..

By and large, the act provides for mundane appropriations to fill recurring DoD contract tenders.