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Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

reuters.com

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Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#181

Post by LandR »

ageitgey wrote: post #176
senko wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for volunteering and putting your health on the line for the benefit of us all. Even if the risk is small, it takes courage. I'm assuming you also don't know if you got the active substance or a placebo?

> I'm assuming you also don't know if you got the active substance or a placebo? Yep. In the UK, they used an existing, unrelated vaccine with similar side effects as the control so it wasn't obvious which one you got. In some countries and for some of the other vaccine trials, they are just using saline as the control so it seems like a lot of those people would know.

> so it seems like a lot of those people would know.

You can tell the difference in getting a vaccine shot and a shot of saline?

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#182

Post by Izkata »

acdha wrote: post #154
Izkata wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile the general populace cares less and less, so we may be back to normal in the spring regardless.

A disease isn’t something you can solve by pretending really hard that it doesn’t exist. People getting their news from irresponsible politicians get sick like everyone else, and that’s why it won’t get back to normal before there’s a vaccine or very effective treatment: it’ll be the same cycle of open-spike-close and businesses not having enough customers to be viable.

> it’ll be the same cycle of open-spike-close and businesses not having enough customers to be viable.

That's the part I'm referring to by "not caring" - just ignoring the close orders, especially since "two weeks to slow the spread" has been so completely abandoned.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#183

Post by tw04 »

apexalpha wrote: post #134
zoobab wrote: post #116

Good news for US BigPharma Merck holding the Oxford patents, while public funding has paid for its research: https://archive.is/aGUJd

Who cares. I'd gladly give this company a couple of billion if it means they can get us back to normal. Oxford develops the vaccine with public money. We also, god willing, need to manufacture billions of them and transport them around the globe. For that manufacturing, give me a solid existing multinational with a proven manufacturing record and base please, not some non-profit startup.

Then it needs to be a cost-plus model. They should absolutely be able to make a profit for manufacturing and handling logistics. They shouldn't be making a 4000% profit when "we" collectively funded all the research.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#184

Post by tomp »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #143
apexalpha wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares. I'd gladly give this company a couple of billion if it means they can get us back to normal. Oxford develops the vaccine with public money. We also, god willing, need to manufacture billions of them and transport them around the globe. For that manufacturing, give me a solid existing multinational with a proven manufacturing record and base please, not some non-profit startup.

I care. Just like about the bailouts. Socializing the funding/losses and privatizing the profits is just pure corruption.

If "we" gave you $20B to move a vaccine from proof-of-concept to production, could you do it? I know I couldn't... That's a service, it's worth money, it's worth paying for.

Edit: people don't seem to understand that there are several stages in pharma development... (1) research, (2) trials, (3) scaling production. It sounds to me that even if (1) and (2) are "paid for" (with public money), (3) is still non-trivial and therefore expensive.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#185

Post by ffdjjjffjj »

nradov wrote: post #140
breakfastduck wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overly cautious about the herd immunity stuff here. We're not going to eliminate the virus completely. That's a given, we should stop aiming for that. If we get to a point where there's a stable number of daily deaths then we're good. (like we have for literally every single fatal illness.)

The moving average of daily deaths in the US has been stable or declining for the past two months. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

That was true until last week. Deaths are now rising again, and daily new cases are approaching the level of the summer peak.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#186

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

gambiting wrote: post #178
bufferoverflow wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they can and it will make them a ton of money. The laws need to change.

But, for instance - public money is used to build roads, yet companies that build them make money in the process. There is no state-owned road building company. What's the difference here?

You don't die if you can't afford to drive on the road. That's the difference.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#187

Post by lbeltrame »

lettergram wrote: post #124
dblooman wrote: post #115

Not knowing anything about big pharma, does Astrazeneca make all the money here? How much does a vaccine like this cost per person given the scale of the distribution and manufacturing?

Usually there is an IP agreement. Also, ever notice the media calls it “Oxford study/vaccine” for good news and “Astrazeneca study/vaccine” when it’s bad news (like a few weeks ago when they had to shutdown to multiple people getting an unknown illness). I work in an area where we make agreements with university’s. It’s often shared IP or publicity. Alternatively, one can publish, once the other makes profits. Or it…

IIRC, the expected price is around $3.50/dose, but I can't find the source for that anymore. AZ and Oxford have pledged not to ask for royalties or whatever, at least until the pandemic is ongoing (that would likely mean all of 2021 at the earliest).

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#188

Post by [deleted] »

gadders wrote: post #103
input_sh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're vastly overestimating our capacity to build enough vaccines and distribute them over the world, as well as dealing with those who will refuse to vaccinate. Even if we had a vaccine ready for the roll-out today, I don't see us going back to normalish until late 2021 at earliest. As with any vaccine, you'd need about 80% of the population to vaccinate in order for herd immunity to kick in. I feel like we…

Given the low fatality rate for COVID, wouldn't you just want to concentrate vaccination on those most at risk? i.e. the elderly, people with underlying conditions etc. You don't need to eradicate the virus, just stop it affecting the most vulnerable. Everybody else can then carry on as normal (albeit with a slight chance of getting a nasty flu-like illness).

[deleted]

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#189

Post by MereInterest »

gambiting wrote: post #178
bufferoverflow wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they can and it will make them a ton of money. The laws need to change.

But, for instance - public money is used to build roads, yet companies that build them make money in the process. There is no state-owned road building company. What's the difference here?

Public money pays for the roads. After the road is built, the road belongs to the public. Public money pays for the research. After the research finishes, the results should belong to the public, the same way as the road does.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#190

Post by acdha »

Izkata wrote: post #182
acdha wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A disease isn’t something you can solve by pretending really hard that it doesn’t exist. People getting their news from irresponsible politicians get sick like everyone else, and that’s why it won’t get back to normal before there’s a vaccine or very effective treatment: it’ll be the same cycle of open-spike-close and businesses not having enough customers to be viable.

> it’ll be the same cycle of open-spike-close and businesses not having enough customers to be viable. That's the part I'm referring to by "not caring" - just ignoring the close orders, especially since "two weeks to slow the spread" has been so completely abandoned.

Ignoring the law doesn’t lead to normal: just more preventable deaths and bankruptcies when businesses burn capital trying to stay open without enough customers to be profitable, even assuming they avoid legal repercussions.
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