Covid- Thank you, Next! Get out of our lives.

[Maithanet]

5 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

Yes, we had talked about this before. The president of Tanzania was a Covid denier, and declared that the country was free of Covid-19, due to prayer. He also dismissed the Covid-19 vaccine, saying that if such a thing were possible there would be vaccines for malaria and other diseases we do not have vaccines for yet. Apparently all kinds of tourists went to Tanzania because the virus trackers showed so few cases. Reports from numerous countries show tourists returning from Tanzania are infected at a rate of about 20%.
 

The president died of complications from Covid-19 earlier this year, as well as a number of members of his cabinet.

Institutions that reported cases of Covid-19 usually retracted their announcements the next day. The Episcopal church reported the deaths of almost 100 nuns and priests, and foreigners reported hospitals being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients.

Tanzania actually ordered vaccines for the first time yesterday (WSJ, limited clicks). 

Quote

 

Tanzania has lodged an order for coronavirus vaccines, the country’s presidency said Thursday, after the East African nation’s government spent a year denying the existence of the virus within its borders and becoming a magnet for Covid-19 skeptics from around the globe.

Tanzania’s request for vaccines from the World Health Organization-backed Covax program, which distributes free Covid-19 shots to the world’s poorest countries, follows the death of President John Magufuli in March, when local doctors and church leaders were warning about a surge in infections. His successor and former deputy, Samia Suluhu Hassan, has tentatively instituted more transparency in the handling of the pandemic, opening several Covid-19 testing centers and wearing masks during public appearances. 

 

 

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Tanzania, despite having more population than Italy, is claiming they've only had 509 Covid cases for the entire pandemic.

Sounds highly unlikely to me.

That's still 509 more cases than Turkmenistan, although don't ask about how many cases of 'unexplained pneumonia' they've had.

[Padraig]

10 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I was reading about it now. Derek Lowe has a good write-up about the issue and he seems inclined to believe that the problem lays on an unmodified RNA bases they use, wherever that mean. 

But reading the comments, apparently this is patented process.

but Curevac has other patents that might be useful according to another comment

I also want to remind that many of the highly effective vaccines use a "prefusion stabilized spike protein" that it's apparently more immunogenic. That also sounds like a patented process.

So, indeed. Patents might be hurting the development of vaccines and it's quite an irony that an European product might have been affected when the EU are the most staunch opposing party to the waiving of patents related to vaccines and medicines.

That is very interesting.  Ironic about the patents.  The EU were trying to protect Curevac and Biontech but only 1 of them benefits now.

The fact that the article also mentions that 41% of cases were Alpha isn't a good sign for Curevac, since other vaccines can handle that vaccine.  Although, it is still possible that it did well against that vaccine and did really badly against the other variants.  We'll find out later.  Not a good story either way.

[JGP]

Achievement Unlocked: 2nd dose