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COVID-19

EU states seek summit on unfair vaccine handouts as AstraZeneca announce more delays

Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Latvia have called for a EU summit to discuss "huge disparities" in the distribution of vaccines, according to a letter published Saturday.

Published: 13 March 2021 11:12 CET
EU states seek summit on unfair vaccine handouts as AstraZeneca announce more delays
(Photo by JENS SCHLUETER / AFP)

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz suggested Friday that some members of the European Union may have signed “secret contracts” with vaccine companies to receive more doses than they were entitled to as per EU-wide agreements.

Kurz and his four counterparts on Friday sent a letter to Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and Charles Michel, president of the European Council, claiming that “deliveries of vaccine doses by pharma companies to individual EU member states are not being implemented on an equal
basis.”

“If this system were to carry on, it would continue creating and exacerbating huge disparities among member states by this summer, whereby some would be able to reach herd immunity in a few weeks while others would lag far behind,” the letter said.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Photo: YVES HERMAN / AFP / POOL

“We therefore call on you… to hold a discussion on this important matter among leaders as soon as possible,” it said.

Kurz on Friday described “bazaars” where some member states made additional agreements with vaccine companies, but an EU spokesman said that it was up to members states to “ask less or more of a given vaccine.”

The Austrian health ministry also dismissed Kurz’s claims, reiterating the EU’s statement that each member state was allowed to say how many doses of the various vaccines it wanted to procure.

“These were very balanced and transparent negotiations,” Ines Stilling, general secretary of the Austrian health ministry, said in an interview with the public broadcaster Saturday.

The European Union has blamed its sluggish vaccine rollout on supply and delivery problems and continues to lag behind the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom in terms of the percentage of the population that has already received at least one dose.

READ ALSO: France will not halt use of AstraZeneca vaccine, says health minister

The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced a new shortfall in planned vaccine shipments to the European Union on Saturday, citing production problems and export restrictions.

“AstraZeneca is disappointed to announce a shortfall in planned COVID-19 vaccine shipments to the European Union (EU) despite working tirelessly to accelerate supply,” it said in a statement.

The company had previously warned it was facing shortfalls from its European supply chain due to “lower-than-expected output from the production process.”

It was hoping to compensate for part of the shortfall by sourcing vaccines from its global network, with half of the EU’s supply in the second quarter and 10 million doses in the first quarter due to come from its international supply chain.

READ ALSO: AstraZeneca suspension: Blood-clot risk ‘no higher in vaccinated people’

(Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP)

“Unfortunately, export restrictions will reduce deliveries in the first quarter, and are likely to affect deliveries in the second quarter,” it added.

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AstraZeneca started delivery of the vaccine to the EU in February, and still aims to deliver 100 million doses in the first half of 2021, of which 30 million are due to be delivered in the first quarter.

The under-fire firm said it was “collaborating with the EU Commission and member states to address the supply challenges.

“It remains confident that productivity in its EU supply chain will continue to improve, to help protect millions of Europeans against the virus.”

READ ALSO: Covid-19: Italy bans batch of AstraZeneca vaccine

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HEALTH

Six things we just learned about the sex lives of Swedes

Women have more sex than men and are generally happier with their sex lives, a new survey suggests.

Published: 18 September 2024 14:45 CEST
Six things we just learned about the sex lives of Swedes

In collaboration with pollsters Verian, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) quizzed just over 1,000 people in Sweden on how they feel about their sex lives.

It found that Swedes are generally happy with their sex lives, but are having less sex with partners than they used to. But that doesn’t have to be a negative, said RFSU.

“It could be because of several things. It could be that our lives are more stressful, but also that we prioritise other things these days. A third factor could be that we’ve got better at listening and allow each other to say no to sex when we don’t feel like it,” said RFSU expert Pelle Ullholm in a statement presenting the new study.

Few Swedes have sex more than once a week

Almost one third (32 percent) said they had had sex with a partner between one and five times in the past month. However, only nine percent said they had had sex between six and ten times, and six percent said they had had sex more than ten times.

Women have more sex than men – but men masturbate more

Exactly one in five (20 percent) women said they had not had any sex with a sexual partner in the past month, compared to 28 percent of male respondents.

When it comes to masturbation, 27 percent of men and 33 percent of women said they had masturbated between one and five times in the past month. But 18 percent of men said they had masturbated more than ten times, compared to only 2 percent of women.

Only 6 percent of men said they had not masturbated at all, compared to 25 percent of women.

Why do Swedes have sex?

Asked what need sex fulfils in their life right now, most people (58 percent) answered “intimacy”, followed by “it’s fun/hot” (45 percent), and “strengthening my relationship” (43 percent). Four percent said they’re having sex in order to have a baby.

Thirteen percent said sex doesn’t fulfil a need for them right now, or does so very little. This share was much higher among women (17 percent) than men (9 percent).

Swedes are happy with their sex lives

The majority of Swedes are happy with their sex lives, the study found, which suggests that the quality of the sex matters more than the quantity.

Women are happier than men: 54 percent of women said they were very or somewhat satisfied with their sex lives, compared to 48 percent of men.

And conversely, 28 percent of men said they were very or somewhat dissatisfied, compared to 18 percent of women.

The conversation around consent is changing

In 2018, Sweden introduced a so-called “consent law”, which changed the legal definition of rape. Under the new law, both participants need to have actively signalled consent either verbally or otherwise. That and the #MeToo movement have both been credited with changing how Swedes talk about sexual relations and consent.

Fourteen percent of women said their partner or partners had improved their communciation around sex as a result of the public discourse, compared to 8 percent of men. And 8 percent in total said it had made them act differently.

The majority (59 percent) said their communication was already good.

Sex is maybe not taboo, but still private

Despite the report by RFSU, and open Swedish attitudes towards sex in general, it appears people are still reluctant to talk about their own sex lives. Around one in five declined to answer the questions about how often they masturbated or had sex.

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