Vaccines
It’s a little bit confusing, but I think the UK said that they can’t ship AZ from Britain to the EU (like the EU says they should) because the UK AZ supply chain includes a subcontractor’s plant which the EU has not given regulatory approval to. (They didn’t give regulatory approval because AZ did not ask for it, but the EU didn’t force AZ to ask for it.) The EU very quickly gave regulatory approval to that plant today.
Currently, the EU and a number of national European leaders are arguing with the UK, AZ, a number of national European leaders, and Pfizer about whether to embargo vaccines. It’s a mess, and I think that makes it less likely for an embargo to happen soon.
The export ban on AZ vaccine in India seems to be holding up; I haven’t seen anything that says that they are doing anything except embargoing. They are a unified state instead of a consortium of countries, so have better internal unity on this measure.
This preprint found that the effectiveness of one dose of AZ or Pfizer was 56% after 28-34 days, and 62% after 35-48 days.
I haven’t mentioned it much, but I wanted to say that there are (still) all kinds of trials going on: for kids, for nasal vaccinations, by other companies, for freeze-dried mRNA (to avoid the need for deep freezers), for VOCs, for different first-to-second dose delays, mixing and matching different brands, pan-coronavirus vaccines, etc. If you are interested in more information than what I give you about vaccine trials, follow Hilda Bastian on Twitter, she’s da bomb.
Reinfection
While reinfection is rare, it can happen. Here’s a case study of a solid-organ transplant patient who legit got reinfected. Transplant patients are given a shitton of immunosuppressive drugs, and that really hammers the immune system for quite a while.