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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

#261

Post by shermheadryder »

DanBC wrote: post #221
nickcotter wrote: post #152

Good news but still a long way to go. How's it going to be rolled out? Here in the UK we have tried and failed to get a regular flu jab (our GPs have run out of a very small supply and the pharmacies don't have any to sell) and I'm not optimistic about our chances of getting this next year or whenever it arrives.

Can I check: are you in the priority group for flu jabs? Because GPs (in England, I don't know about the other nations) should have enough stock. They are prioritising higher need first, and then the expanded programme later in the year, and then anyone else who wants one after that. If you're not priority need you can try a pharmacist.

I'm in the priority group for a flu jab and I managed to get a jab from a pharmacy no problem. YMMV, though.

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

#262

Post by logicchains »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #153
jariel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID is special though in that if it were only as deadly to the young as it were to everyone, I don't think we'd be referring to this as a pandemic. Literally, right now we are seeing case rates explode, but the number of casualties is paradoxically very low because it's mostly the younger cohorts getting sick - which is probably a social function of things like 'back school' and 'risky behaviours' among younger gro…

Some of the longer term effects are scary though - I suspect that younger people might not be so blasé about chronic illness. At minimum younger people who have had covid are looking at a lot more regular check-ups for the rest of there life.

> Some of the longer term effects are scary though - I suspect that younger people might not be so blasé about chronic illness.

There's not a single peer-reviewed study showing a significantly higher frequency of long-term adverse effects in healthy individuals compared to other respiratory illnesses.

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

#263

Post by _Microft »

strgcmc wrote: post #248
_Microft wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nominal world economy 'GDP' was $90T in 2019 [0]. An economic contraction of 5% because of the pandemic would mean a loss of $4500B. If a vaccine helps to avoid that, even a cost of dozens of billion dollars for it would be peanuts in comparison. This is only the economic cost avoided let alone the human tragedies. Edit: german Wikipedia suggest that the contraction is only expected to be 3% but because of the nu…

This is also how criminal mobs operate, in terms of protection money, extortion, ransom, etc. The underlying economic principle is the same ("gee, sure would be a shame if this expensive thing X were to break..."). Beware of relying on this as the only reason to justify the cost. Hopefully there is some other significant differentiating characteristic or attribute to justify this state of affairs between society and…

This is not a good argument.

We are talking about a company providing a service. They might not have invented the vaccine but they are providing the means to bring it from proof of concept into mass production. The commenter seemed to think that this isn't worth money.

I argue that you get quite a bang for the buck.

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

#264

Post by mercer »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #194
benlumen wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be surprised. The government knows that this is the silver bullet they need to rescue the economy from oblivion. I’m expecting that once this thing is ready there’ll be a logistical effort for the history books to roll it out. See what they can do with the military involved, like the nightingales.

Sad to say, given how testing, lockdown, etc. has proceeded, I'm losing confidence that most western governments are capable of any "logistical efforts for the history books" at this point. I heard a lot of bluster about testing here in Ontario in the spring, but here we are in the fall with rationing of tests again.

I suspect the government will magically be much better at logistical efforts when there's a clear economic pay-off. Neoliberalism might not be great when it comes to helping the little man, but I suspect it can swiftly get its act together when it comes to a short-term solution to economic malaise.

Or at least I hope so.

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

#265

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#266

Post by bdavisx »

_Microft wrote: post #165
bufferoverflow wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The nominal world economy 'GDP' was $90T in 2019 [0]. An economic contraction of 5% because of the pandemic would mean a loss of $4500B. If a vaccine helps to avoid that, even a cost of dozens of billion dollars for it would be peanuts in comparison. This is only the economic cost avoided let alone the human tragedies. Edit: german Wikipedia suggest that the contraction is only expected to be 3% but because of the nu…

OR we could look at it as if the pandemic has already cost us 4.5T based on your figures, and that's enough. We come together and defeat the virus without anyone profiting - we all lose, we've all lost already, ffs, let's let people profit off of the death, because why not?

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

#267

Post by gnfargbl »

nickcotter wrote: post #237
DanBC wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I check: are you in the priority group for flu jabs? Because GPs (in England, I don't know about the other nations) should have enough stock. They are prioritising higher need first, and then the expanded programme later in the year, and then anyone else who wants one after that. If you're not priority need you can try a pharmacist.

According to my GP they had a batch for the over 65s but they ran out pretty quickly. I usually get free flu jabs due to asthma but although it's strongly recommended I'm not aware of it being a definite priority group.

Suggest trying again with your GP. I'm also in a lower-priority group and didn't get the jab during the first round, but my local surgery contacted me later when stocks had been replenished.

Aside: It was, for the NHS, an exceptionally efficient process. I was given an exact time slot and was in and out in less than three minutes.

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

#268

Post by mcv »

leemcalilly wrote: post #215
bufferoverflow wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is not corrupt. It’s money well spent. The benefits to us all are most likely more valuable than anything we’ve spent on vaccine research. Government balance sheets also probably come out ahead on that investment given that the alternative is an economy with a raging pandemic and resulting lower tax base. Then there is the logistical effort of manufacturing the vaccine at the scale and speed required. There are…

Not when it's a monopoly. That means the company gets to exploit the results of the research for their own profit, without any competition to keep prices reasonable. Non-exclusive deals are fine. Exclusive ones are not.

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

#269

Post by eecc »

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?

That’s a faulty parallel. The road belongs to the public, while only the building is tendered to a private (in a presumably competitive market) to maximize quality and price ratio.

In this case the building is publicly funded for a profit AND the final result donated in “perpetuity” to make it a private TOLL road.

Double dip?

(I’m ok with subsidizing the research, and even negotiating a bulk manufacturing contract with an agreed margin... but a patent? Isn’t that bending too far?)

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

#270

Post by toyg »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #194
benlumen wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be surprised. The government knows that this is the silver bullet they need to rescue the economy from oblivion. I’m expecting that once this thing is ready there’ll be a logistical effort for the history books to roll it out. See what they can do with the military involved, like the nightingales.

Sad to say, given how testing, lockdown, etc. has proceeded, I'm losing confidence that most western governments are capable of any "logistical efforts for the history books" at this point. I heard a lot of bluster about testing here in Ontario in the spring, but here we are in the fall with rationing of tests again.

> I'm losing confidence that most western governments are capable of any "logistical efforts for the history books"

Oh, they are. Just don't ask too many questions about money disappearing in the darker corners of such effort.

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