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Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

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Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#41

Post by Bootvis »

prepend wrote: post #24
_wka6 wrote: post #6

The ultra-rich don't need a vaccine. They just get $150k stem cell injections into their neck.

Do you have some more information about this treatment? I haven’t heard about it, but that might be because I’m not in the market for $150k medical treatments :)

GP is undoubtedly referring to the regeneron treatment:

https://investor.regeneron.com/news-releases/news-release-de...

This doesn’t contain stem cells but was tested on fetal tissue:

https://www.verywellhealth.com/regeneron-antibody-cocktail-s...

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#42

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

I'm not quite in the top 400k of wealth in the country, but I'm decently close, and I can say it's hard to picture paying 25k to skip the line. Nevermind that a lot of the wealthiest folks (older folks) are already at the front of the line due to their advanced age.

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#43

Post by chadash »

ForHackernews wrote: post #39
chadash wrote: post #30

I don't think it's a crazy idea, but the numbers here seem a bit hopeful. I don't think you're gonna get 100 people to pay $100 million for an earlier spot in the line. Or 1000 people to pay $10 million. Particularly because people with that amount of money to throw around (if you can pay $10 million for one vaccine, you are very very wealthy) know that they can most likely pull strings to get ahead in the line anywa…

According to this article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rich-wealt... some people are offering ~$25,000 to jump the line.

~$25,000, sure. That's pocket change for some people. But this article is talking about payments of $10 to $100 million. And in any case, I'm not convinced that 400,000 people would pay $25k.

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#44

Post by _qwfv »

Hankenstein2 wrote: post #10

I wouldn't even charge for the privilege. As long as health care workers and nursing homes stay at the absolute head of the line, nothing else really matters until we hit herd immunity. Publicize how desperate the rich are to get the vaccine and that 60% willingness to get vaccinated will go up (which is a large part of what the article said). I think charging money to skip, just causes a whole raft of other problems…

I disagree. Various populations are at greater risk. Unhoused people, for example, should get the vaccine before me. So should anyone who has to work on site somewhere. Parents and care givers who care for children, etc etc.

I work in tech, I work from home and can have stuff delivered. Put me at the end of the line.

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#45

Post by babesh »

What this article doesn’t seem to realize is that they don’t have a seat at the table. If you haven’t been invited then you don’t count.

Look at how Stanford Medicine allocated its allocation of the vaccine. It allocated it to administrators first then apologized when it was exposed. What is left unsaid is that they never gave up their power to decide who gets the vaccine.

Have you heard of anyone giving up their place in line for the vaccine?

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#46

Post by Frost1x »

phtrivier wrote: post #18

It would be intereseting to see the content organization targeting antivaxers switch from "the vaccine is dangerous, no famous people would take it" to "the vaccine is too expensive, they want to let us die !", probably via a short segway through "the vaccine is dangerous but the rich people are only pretending to take it so that they can kill you."

I can't help but be reminded of the Potato King story with the current COVID vaccine discussions:

https://wight.consulting/2020/05/19/marketing-and-stolen-pot...

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#48

Post by pfortuny »

_qwfv wrote: post #31

I thought this was satire after reading the headline. But no, this is someone suggesting celebrities and billionaires should be the first people we protect. In a healthy functioning society, we'd protect the most vulnerable first -- elderly, front line workers, grocery store workers, etc. And we'd find the funding to make that happen either by taxing the ultra wealthy or just printing money because it's a pandemic an…

“In a healthy functioning society, we'd ...”

Well, in your idea of a healthy functioning society.

EDIT: the above sounds probably too harsh. But the real question is:

Why is that bad?

Take also into account that vaccinating celebs is just counting beans in the whole process.

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#49

Post by vorpalhex »

_qwfv wrote: post #31

I thought this was satire after reading the headline. But no, this is someone suggesting celebrities and billionaires should be the first people we protect. In a healthy functioning society, we'd protect the most vulnerable first -- elderly, front line workers, grocery store workers, etc. And we'd find the funding to make that happen either by taxing the ultra wealthy or just printing money because it's a pandemic an…

It's a scarcity problem. We have a finite amount of doses and more importantly, ways to transport and give those doses. Many (but not all) of those problems can be solved by putting more money into the system.

One way we handle scarcity in capitalism is by charging for things. Would you be willing to let a rich guy pay $10 million for the vaccine.. if it meant a 1000 teachers could get it for free next week?

It is basically a tax on the rich except it's opt in.

Re: Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

#50

Post by ouid »

Jesus, when did economists get so single minded? The benefits of a vaccine are almost exclusively from the network effects. It is almost purely externality. Since when are markets capable of efficiently allocating externalities? Likelihood to spread the virus does not correlate with personal incentive to get vaccinated.

There might be a market scheme for allocating the virus that does align with society's incentives, but I would bet dollars to pennies that that solution is basically just democratically elected government.

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