Covid-19 #22: What Were You Doing This Time Last Year?

[williamjm]

I saw this website today with statistics about how many people different countries have vaccinated:

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Looking at % of population Israel are way out in front with 11%, Bahrain and the UK are the only other countries over 1%.

[Fury Resurrected]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Because Astra-Zeneca screwed up their doses in their trial, they’ll have a hard time getting US approval. Their best results came from the Phase 3 group that got the wrong doses, the full dose and a half dose, which gave 90% efficacy. The two full doses only gave efficacy in the 60s range. 
 

Johnson & Johnson will release their results this month, and as a huge company they will be able to produce ver large amounts of vaccine. I think, like the other companies, they are already making vaccine to be ready for immediate shipment.

60-70% efficacy is still a rate that gets approval, flu shots are often at or below that. The AstraZeneca vaccine doesn’t need extreme low temperatures, which will be important for rollout in remote areas and if we run into the expected shortage of dry ice. I’d be surprised if any of the vaccines don’t receive US approval

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

The deal with Moderna is far smaller than the deal with Pfizer, 80 millions of doses, unlikely to make a difference for this winter, which is the point here, because in 6 months the situation will be different one can hope.

The EU has ordered 160m doses.

https://www.ft.com/content/9a3af55e-c66c-4451-a34e-7110ce005cd

The problem is more with the production capability.  No point ordering 0.5bn doses if you can't expect to get most of the doses for a year.  But as things develop, and other vaccines come on stream (or not), there will be top up orders.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

As I mentioned above, UK is seriously discussing to roll out the vaccine with a single (yet unproven) shot. The EU should discuss the same, but it's unlikely to happen.

Why is it unlikely to happen?  Not that I'm convinced its the best policy.  There has been dissent in the UK.  But if the medical scientists say its the right thing to do, I can't see EU countries ignoring it.

Anyhow, i'm pretty sure it is up to each country to make up its own mind about how it distributes the drug.  Not the EU.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

They already told them it won't be easy. https://www.thejournal.ie/oxford-vaccine-eu-approval-5313515-Dec2020/

Yes.  That was one of the articles I was reading.   The different approach taken by the US/EU versus the UK is striking.

41 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

60-70% efficacy is still a rate that gets approval, flu shots are often at or below that.

It is not the efficacy that is delaying approval.  Its the underlying data.

[Fury Resurrected]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

The EU has ordered 160m doses.

https://www.ft.com/content/9a3af55e-c66c-4451-a34e-7110ce005cd

The problem is more with the production capability.  No point ordering 0.5bn doses if you can't expect to get most of the doses for a year.  But as things develop, and other vaccines come on stream (or not), there will be top up orders.

Why is it unlikely to happen?  Not that I'm convinced its the best policy.  There has been dissent in the UK.  But if the medical scientists say its the right thing to do, I can't see EU countries ignoring it.

Anyhow, i'm pretty sure it is up to each country to make up its own mind about how it distributes the drug.  Not the EU.

Yes.  That was one of the articles I was reading.   The different approach taken by the US/EU versus the UK is striking.

It is not the efficacy that is delaying approval.  Its the underlying data.

The data isn’t finished yet. I am actually a participant in the phase 3 AZN trial. I haven’t even had the second dose yet.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

Yes.  That was one of the articles I was reading.   The different approach taken by the US/EU versus the UK is striking.

I saw today that India have approved the Oxford vaccine as well and apparently have 50 million doses manufactured which is impressive, even if still a small amount compared to their vast population.

[Fragile Bird]

7 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

The data isn’t finished yet. I am actually a participant in the phase 3 AZN trial. I haven’t even had the second dose yet.

The Astra Zeneca trial is weeks behind in the US because after their first “incident” report, the UK and the EU allowed them to continue within days, as did other countries, but not the US. US approval to re-start took a couple of weeks. And it’s already approved in the UK and vaccinations start on Monday. I don’t think the US will approve it without stronger data. Let’s hope the US trial is run better than the earlier ones.

And with regard to the efficacy rate, this is not the flu. Flu vaccines are often well below 50%, sometimes as low as 30%, because world authorities make a guess in the summer which version of the flu will be dominant by the fall and quite often they guess wrong.

The last guess I saw for the percentage of population that needs to be vaccinated to get herd immunity was 82%, but I think that was with a vaccine at 90% or better efficacy, The lower the percentage, more people will need to be vaccinated.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Omfg.....this is not gonna get much better, for those thinking the snails pace of the rollout was just temporary and a beginners hiccup, think again. This is it, this is the best our leaders can come up with apparently.

DeBlasio out today with his plan (for NYC) to accomplish only a pathetic 1 million doses by the END of January. I think williamjm earlier pointed out the entire Nation of Israel has already 11% of their people vaccinated (first shot only) right now, not a month from now.

Israel and NYC are comparable in population around 9 million.

And they (NY) are calling their plan "ambitious". In a month DeBlasio hopes to reach where Israel already is today......with similar numbers of population.

https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/898-20/city-sets-ambitious-goal-1-million-doses-administered-january

2021 is going to be a long year with some big letdowns.

[Fury Resurrected]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

The Astra Zeneca trial is weeks behind in the US because after their first “incident” report, the UK and the EU allowed them to continue within days, as did other countries, but not the US. US approval to re-start took a couple of weeks. And it’s already approved in the UK and vaccinations start on Monday. I don’t think the US will approve it without stronger data. Let’s hope the US trial is run better than the earlier ones.

And with regard to the efficacy rate, this is not the flu. Flu vaccines are often well below 50%, sometimes as low as 30%, because world authorities make a guess in the summer which version of the flu will be dominant by the fall and quite often they guess wrong.

The last guess I saw for the percentage of population that needs to be vaccinated to get herd immunity was 82%, but I think that was with a vaccine at 90% or better efficacy, The lower the percentage, more people will need to be vaccinated.

Again, the refrigeration needs of the current vaccines are a huge hurdle. If we meet production and distribution goals, there probably won’t be enough dry ice to transport and store if every dose we have needs it. I was listening to MPR and a spokesman for one of the dry ice companies was saying there probably isn’t enough of it fast enough to do this task. It’s a huge logistical problem that will mean that in some cases, it’s 60-70% efficacy or no vaccine at all. None of these vaccines or approaches need to be the silver bullet, we’re going to need every tool we can get and the AstraZeneca vaccine is going to get US approval barring any statistically significant major reactions.

[Fragile Bird]

41 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Again, the refrigeration needs of the current vaccines are a huge hurdle. If we meet production and distribution goals, there probably won’t be enough dry ice to transport and store if every dose we have needs it. I was listening to MPR and a spokesman for one of the dry ice companies was saying there probably isn’t enough of it fast enough to do this task. It’s a huge logistical problem that will mean that in some cases, it’s 60-70% efficacy or no vaccine at all. None of these vaccines or approaches need to be the silver bullet, we’re going to need every tool we can get and the AstraZeneca vaccine is going to get US approval barring any statistically significant major reactions.

I suspect the answer is Johnson & Johnson.

[Fury Resurrected]

50 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I suspect the answer is Johnson & Johnson.

I think the answer is all of the above. The best way to get it done is to get as much vaccine out there as possible, if we use every vaccine and every company that makes one, that’s where we can get the numbers we need, especially in lower infrastructure countries where refrigeration and transportation will be a major issue. That these vaccines are different also helps spread the supply and production burdens out. We gotta throw the kitchen sink at this thing, especially in America where we are a country of dumbasses who won’t take the smallest and easiest of precautions to prevent spread.

[Spockydog]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Omfg.....this is not gonna get much better, for those thinking the snails pace of the rollout was just temporary and a beginners hiccup, think again. This is it, this is the best our leaders can come up with apparently.

Just be grateful you're not living in Africa. You might be waiting five years.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

7 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Just be grateful you're not living in Africa. You might be waiting five years.

 

And we're already reading about this kind of crap going on-

HOMEPAGE

HOME  NEWS

Health officials in Tennessee turned away elderly people waiting for hours to get a vaccine and gave it to friends instead: report

Yelena Dzhanova

Jan 2, 2021, 12:58 PM

   

Getty/David Greedy

• Hundreds of elderly people in Tennessee were turned away from getting a COVID-19 vaccine after waiting for hours to receive one on New Year's Eve. 
• They were told to go home because of a shortage in supplies, according to local news outlet WRCB-TV. 
• But after the elderly people left, health officials called up their friends and family members and gave them the vaccine.

https://www.insider.com/health-officials-gave-covid-vaccines-to-friends-instead-of-elderly-2021-1?amp

[Spockydog]

14 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

And we're already reading about this kind of crap going on-

HOMEPAGE

HOME  NEWS

Health officials in Tennessee turned away elderly people waiting for hours to get a vaccine and gave it to friends instead: report

 

 

And I'm sure nobody will be surprised that:

WORLD FACES COVID-19 “VACCINE APARTHEID”

Quote

 

PFIZER CEO ALBERT BOURLA recently heaped praise on “the almost 44,000 people who selflessly raised their hands to participate in our trial.”

“Each of you has helped to bring the world one step closer to our shared goal of a potential vaccine to fight this devastating pandemic,” Bourla wrote in an open letter to volunteers who took part in Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine research, which was conducted in Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, and Turkey as well as the U.S. His letter was published on November 9, the same day Pfizer announced that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective at preventing the disease, and Bourla laid this considerable accomplishment at the feet of the medical volunteers: “You are the true heroes, and the whole world owes you a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

But Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, and Turkey will have to be satisfied with Pfizer’s gratitude, because (like most countries in the world) they won’t be receiving enough of the vaccine to inoculate their populations, at least not anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Germany — along with Canada and the rest of the European Union — have contracted for enough doses of various Covid-19 vaccines to inoculate their populations several times over. 

 

Western Capitalism really needs to go fuck itself.

[DireWolfSpirit]

7 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

 

I'm sure nobody will be surprised that:

WORLD FACES COVID-19 “VACCINE APARTHEID”

Western Capitalism really needs to go fuck itself.

See my earlier post about the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights so that vaccine can be mass produced worldwide. People and groups are pushing for this, whether it gains the necessary traction to save masses of humanity, we'll have to see?

But my hopes are dire that it will happen, even though it's absolutely what the World needs, yesterday.

[The Anti-Targ]

It seems most people don't want to have international institutions established with the authority to take control of matters of global significance. So, capitalism or no, this vaccine nationalism is what a world looks like that is run on the basis of national interest.

[Luzifer's right hand]

21 hours ago, Padraig said:

Most governments in Europe are adding a lot more measures now.   No choice given how badly things have gotten.  Anyhow, the "less measures" side is definitely losing currently.

 

As long as there is no proper enforcement of the measures and the existence of bullshit things like mask exemption certificates most measures are pretty meaningless. There is no safe place except your own home thanks to these things because you can always encounter a person who refuses to wear masks.

[A wilding]

18 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

As long as there is no proper enforcement of the measures and the existence of bullshit things like mask exemption certificates most measures are pretty meaningless. There is no safe place except your own home thanks to these things because you can always encounter a person who refuses to wear masks.

The problem there is that such enforcement is simply impractical, except in sufficiently organised authoritarian countries such as China.

The only practical approach is to get a consensus of support in the population behind the measures needed. That requires openness, simple and unvarying messaging, education, PR, leading by example, and so forth. Enforcement is only going to be of use in then dealing with the small minority of selfish idiots who can't be reached by those means.

 

[Clueless Northman]

"Freedom" is what's getting us killed right now, so fuck your freedom when it exposes plenty of people to unnecessary and easily avoidable death. Survival comes first at the end of the day.

As said, the assholes who don't follow the rules should actually be punished for it. Punished for real, not a stern look and a warning. Europe has been abysmally bad at this - and it's not hard to police, once people are under lockdown, there shouldn't be that many people outside. Heck, I've seen police passing by complete idiots without masks, and they didn't even say anything to them, instead of fining them or beating them silly (which they fully deserved for their murderous behaviour).

When it comes to vaccines I've always been of the opinion that they should be made public and every place which can produce some should do it. I don't expect this to happen, of course, way too many special interests linked to "intellectual properties" and other similar scams.

[Luzifer's right hand]

14 minutes ago, A wilding said:

The problem there is that such enforcement is simply impractical, except in sufficiently organised authoritarian countries such as China.

The only practical approach is to get a consensus of support in the population behind the measures needed. That requires openness, simple and unvarying messaging, education, PR, leading by example, and so forth. Enforcement is only going to be of use in then dealing with the small minority of selfish idiots who can't be reached by those means.

 

Enforcement in grocery stores and at the workplace is all that I ask for. Schools too I guess. That should not be impossible. In my experince we are not talking about a small minority here the number of selfish people is closer to 50% and we already lost them to fake news long ago. 

[A wilding]

Since you have mentioned Europe, I would point out that there is a relevant culture difference between the US and Europe here. In Europe the concept of a rugged individualist anti-government freedom is just not put on a pedestal in the way it is by many people in the US - the idea seems bizarre to most of us. At the same time, policing in Europe is generally by consent (to a varying extent in different countries admittedly), they don't generally regard themselves as an occupying force holding down the population, like US police sometimes seem to.

It would be unthinkable for UK police to go around beating up people for not wearing masks (however much those maskless may be being obnoxious scumbags.) Perhaps the UK loses out because of this attitude, but it also gains, and it is not as if the US is doing any better at keeping Covid-19 under control.

Edit: this was mostly in response to @Clueless Northman