Friday, April 23, 2021

The Big Lie About US COVID Vaccine Exports

 Last month, I expressed disbelief at EU claims the US had installed a vaccine export ban, which mainly was based on Israel's early vaccination program, one I assumed was based in the US, based on the early huzzahs about first doses leaving a plant in Portage, Michigan. But this was flatly contradicted by Charles Michel's claim that "Most of the doses with which Israel embarked on its mass vaccination programme were sent from Belgium."

There I left it, until another Politico EU article came to my attention, this one about AstraZeneca production shortfalls. The relevant grafs (emboldening mine, as usual):

While a Belgian subcontractor making the serum or "drug substance," was fulfilling its contract with AstraZeneca, another plant in the Netherlands wasn't producing enough to be included in the company’s application for approval to European regulators at the end of December, according to EU documents seen by POLITICO and the Belgian magazine Knack.

With so little drug substance coming from the EU, AstraZeneca turned to its U.S. plant in Maryland to make up the difference.

"The most important quantity" of drug substance came from the American plant, owned by Catalent, before being put into vials in Italy in a process known as "fill and finish," the documents said, detailing inspections in January and early February of three AstraZeneca plants in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands that produced vaccines for the EU.

 So, perhaps they mean arm-ready shots? Either way, there is, as I suspected, a lot less there than meets the eye. The US has not, in fact, stopped exports of vaccines.

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