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Thailand Considers Cap on Vaccine Exports as COVID Cases Surge


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A health worker prepares a shot of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people at the Central Vaccination Center in Bangkok, Thailand, July 22, 2021.

 

By Zsombor Peter

 

BANGKOK - Thailand is considering a cap on the export of locally made COVID-19 vaccines as it scrambles to shore up domestic supplies amid its worst outbreak of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. Talk of restricting exports comes as some of Thailand’s neighbors are also battling major new waves of infection.

 

Thailand and AstraZeneca struck a production deal last year for the British-Swedish pharmaceuticals giant to make its COVID-19 vaccine in Thailand. With the help of a local drugmaker, Siam Bioscience, AstraZeneca is set to make about 200 million doses between mid-2021 and mid-2022. The Thai government has reserved about a third of those doses, with the rest bound for export to Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and other neighbors.

 

A cap on vaccine exports could force those countries to delay or rethink their plans to get shots in arms. But with less than 6% of its nearly 70 million people fully inoculated and the highly contagious delta variant of the virus now driving daily infection rates to record highs, Thailand is eager to add more AstraZeneca shots to its vaccine lineup.

 

Full story: https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/thailand-considers-cap-vaccine-exports-covid-cases-surge

 

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-- © Copyright Voice of America 2021-07-28
 
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2 minutes ago, Credo said:

I wonder if this is legal?   It's produced in Thailand, but it's a cooperative agreement with AZ and the doses are under contract to other countries.   

 

Start a legal procedure, see how long it will take to come to a conclusion.

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People here are plenty worried.  I had an appointment at Bang Sue yesterday for the first AZ shot at 1600 hours.  There was literally thousands of people there.  I didn't get my jab until 1830.

 

I realise that yesterday was the last day Thais could not show up without registering so a lot of people was expected.  The staff on hand did the best they could under the circumstances.

 

Italy withheld AZ from Australia despite a previous order so this is not unheard of.  Whether it is legal depends on the wording of the contract.

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it needs the agreement of AZ because they provide certain critical ingredients that allow for its manufacture, expansion of manufacturing or open another facility might be a better way to provide more.

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Interesting, my view would be Thailand can do it if they so wish as the production contract is between Siam Bioscience and AZ? So national sovereign law (as can be passed by the government under section 44) would have precedence over the contract between SB and AZ. SB are a private company so cannot be held accountable for the decisions of a sovereign government. Question would be are Thai Gov party to the contract as they part funded the production lab I seem to remember reading.

Whether Thailand should attempt this another matter.

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2 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

Start a legal procedure, see how long it will take to come to a conclusion.

 

Exactly, in 20 years some state in Germany will seize someone's plane.

 

Hopewell Project still being litigated, Thailand still not paying.

 

 

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One of the golden rules of good management: Don't try to fix a mistake with another mistake.

 

This decision could have a very negative impact on Thailand's international credibility and prestige with long-term consequences.

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4 minutes ago, Pravda said:

 

????

Well....if they have zero prestige and credibility how then AZ decided to create a factory in TH and move there part of the production? That means that at least they have some credibility that they might lose. Probably more than Russia btw

Edited by dan42
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4 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand is considering a cap on the export of locally made COVID-19 vaccines as it scrambles to shore up domestic supplies amid its worst outbreak of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. Talk of restricting exports comes as some of Thailand’s neighbors are also battling major new waves of infection.

Thailand has no say in the distribution of the AZ vaccine, it gets what it was contractually given, with the rest agreed for export.

 

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I think this VOA news report may be somewhat out of date...

 

Yes, they were talking about export curbs some days back when the news first broke about just how short their AZ supplies were going to be...

 

But then they went silent on the export curbs issue for days... And then two days ago on Monday, the government's spokesman during a news briefing went to great lengths to stress that the vaccines solution needed to be a REGIONAL one for SE Asia....

 

So from those comments, it really didn't sound like they're planning to try to hijack the Thailand-produced AZ supplies bound for their various neighboring countries...  Rather, they seem to have publicly settled on the notion that they're only going to get 5-6 million AZ doses per month for local use, down from the 10 million that they originally promised.

 

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27 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

they're only going to get 5-6 million AZ doses per month for local use

 

And that will be a stretch, according the AZ/THL headman Teague. Will require a perfect storm-level of events as they "scour" the globe for supplies. (Or that could have been hyperbole on his part, who knows as there is no transparency.)

 

 

 

But yes, I think seasoned MoFA types like Don Pramudwinai will back-stop any foolishness. So called "legal expert", Wissanu Krea-ngam, would do whatever he's told.

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

But then a second TH news report came along and used the same 50% figure.... Not sure what's going on with that!

 

I have been sensing a movement/trend towards getting one shot into as many people as possible, as quickly as possible by foregoing second doses. I think this makes sense, but I'm not an expert, nor would I want to make this decision.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

And, lately, I've noticed an increased tendency on some of the government talking heads to refer to their vaccination percentages based on a single shot number,

Again, reinforces movement towards one-shot coverage vs. two-shots. We're told a single dose of AZ is 87% effective re: severe symptoms, hospitalization and death.

 

 

70%/50 mm people with one dose by year's end is probably doable with supplies. Assumes sinovac "qualifies". They're nearly at 33% now with at least one shot (~  16 mm). With supplies and maximum effort; but the last three days have been dismal, weekends always are, but yesterday (admittedly a holiday) was only 138,892.

 

Assume 25 mm AZ doses ( 5 mm per month for 5 months) + 2.3 mm this week for 27.3 mm. And a smattering of siniovac or pharm, Moderna, Pfizer, and they're close (to the ~ 33 mm needed). Maybe by the end of January 2022 for 50 mm with at least one shot?

 

 

 

Edited by mtls2005
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6 hours ago, webfact said:

A cap on vaccine exports could force those countries to delay or rethink their plans to get shots in arms.

A cop on vaccine exports invalidates contractual agreements between Astrazenaca and the countries who contracted for vaccine deliveries. 
That will force all countries globally to rethink their plans to conduct international business with Thailand now and in the future.

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23 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

I have been sensing a movement/trend towards getting one shot into as many people as possible, as quickly as possible by foregoing second doses. I think this makes sense, but I'm not an expert, nor would I want to make this decision.

 

Lately, by a rough day to day view, the 1st dose to 2nd dose ratio often has been in the 10 to 1 range. Such as for yesterday:

 

Screenshot_9.jpg.addb60cccd90a2b40a8291692662437c.jpg

 

Some of it may be that smaller numbers of people are yet due for their second shot. But my guess is it's mainly what you suggest, and that's a deliberate effort to get at least a first shot into as many people as possible.

 

The downside to that, though, is that first shots alone, especially for the Sinovac being given to many Thais, don't provide much protection, espec. against the Delta variant. But given their limited available supply of vaccine doses, I don't know what their better choice would be.

Edited by TallGuyJohninBKK
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15 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

 

I have been sensing a movement/trend towards getting one shot into as many people as possible, as quickly as possible by foregoing second doses. I think this makes sense, but I'm not an expert, nor would I want to make this decision.

 

 

 

Again, reinforces movement towards one-shot coverage vs. two-shots. We're told a single dose of AZ is 87% effective re: severe symptoms, hospitalization and death.

 

 

70%/50 mm people with one dose by year's end is probably doable with supplies. Assumes sinovac "qualifies". They're nearly at 33% now with at least one shot (~  16 mm). With supplies and maximum effort; but the last three days have been dismal, weekends always are, but yesterday (admittedly a holiday) was only 138,892.

 

Assume 25 mm AZ doses ( 5 mm per month for 5 months) + 2,. mm this week for 27.3 mm. And a smattering of siniovac or pharm, Moderna, Pfizer, and they're close (to the ~ 33 mm needed). Maybe by the end of January 2022 for 50 mm with at least one shot?

 

 

 

 

Single shot of AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria shows effectiveness against variants

AstraZeneca has reported that a single dose of its Covid-19 vaccine, Vaxzevria, was 82% effective against hospitalisation or mortality caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ Beta or Gamma variants.

The data is from a study by the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN) with support from the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research...

The study analyzed the vaccine in a total of 69,533 Covid-19 patients in Ontario, Canada. Of these, 28,705 subjects tested positive for non-variants of concern and 40,828 were positive for a variant of concern of SARS-CoV-2.

https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/astrazeneca-vaxzevria-effective-variants/

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3 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Lately, by a rough day to day view, the 1st dose to 2nd dose ratio often has been in the 10 to 1 range. Such as for yesterday:

 

 

AZ second doses don't come due until August 2 (8 weeks after the June 7 launch).

 

Hence the high ratio.

 

Will be interesting to see if second doses get pushed? I suspect they will, at least in high infection rate locales.

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6 hours ago, Credo said:

I wonder if this is legal?   It's produced in Thailand, but it's a cooperative agreement with AZ and the doses are under contract to other countries.   

 

force majeure

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7 hours ago, Credo said:

I wonder if this is legal?   It's produced in Thailand, but it's a cooperative agreement with AZ and the doses are under contract to other countries.   

 

Of course it is legal.  Thailand is a sovereign country and it just needs to publish an emergency ministerial regulation in the Royal Decree for this to be become law with immediate effect. Anutin said this would be done about 10 days ago, although nothing has happened, leading to speculation it was a bluff. The contract for production and exports is between AZ and SBS, not the government which is merely a customer of AZ.  So AZ can't sue the government for breach of contract but AZ's other customers can. 

 

Apart from relations with ASEAN neighbours and Taiwan, I think the problem lies with the fact that AZ controls all other parts of the global supply chain apart from exports from Thailand.  They have said they will try to find vaccines for Thailand from other countries and have already got 500,000 from Korea and 2 milion from Japan for Thailand. This they will obviously stop doing, if there is an export ban. 

 

More seriously AZ controls the flow of inputs into Thailand.  These inputs are in short supply and AZ could easily divert some of them from Thailand to other factories that have surplus capacity in order to make up some of the export shortfalls caused by a ban, thus still leaving Thailand short. The government could not sue AZ, if it did this, as it would still be supplying what Thailand ordered. SBS could not sue either as the supply of hard to soure inputs must be on a best efforts basis and it is up to AZ how it fulfills orders from outside Thailand.  Japan is an obviously possibility for expanding capacity, since, although the Japanese need vaccines, there has been AZ hesitancy there due to blood clots and the Japanese AZ factory, which is probably about the same size as the Thai one, has been donating unwanted vaccines abroad, including to Thailand.

 

Finally there is the possibility that vaccine production could start in other Asian countries but might be out of Thailand's reach if it decides to ban its own exports.   

Edited by Dogmatix
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