51–60 of 92 posts
I would expect the even moderately wealthy to be able to cut in line and acquire it whether or not they admit to it publicly.
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 :)
And, of course, antibodies aren't made from stem cells, so I don't actually know what the poster is on about here.
[0] https://www.globaldata.com/eli-lillys-covid-19-mab-bamlanivi...
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…
I don't think that's what it's saying though. It's saying by allocating ~500k vaccines (or as few as ~100k), we can raise $50 billion dollars, and show people that other "influential" people see the vaccine not only as safe, but as something that should be sought after. In the grand scheme of things, that represents a very small portion of the total supply, and hence I'd argue the upside ($50B + more people getting the vaccine) would be worth it.
Secondly "this isn't political! It's either a free-market solution or a tax". No. It's not a free-market solution, it's the governemnt setting an arbitrary price for a product they have a legal monopoly on, it's also not a tax since it's entirely optional for people to pay it.
Thirdly, the comparison to Delaney is massively off - Delaney's plan would save nearly $100Bn compared to the current solution of selling the vaccine and congress being forced to hand out $2000 stimulus checks. Becuase the checks weren't really about getting people to take the vaccine, it was about providing the stimulus checks that are already going to happen, but tying them to something.
Finally, if you're rich enough to give $100k for a vaccine you're probably rich enough to find a way of getting it somewhere else, so really what we're saying is that you're asking them to make a massive donation for something that they don't need fron you.
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 think charging money to skip, just causes a whole raft of other problems. Why? >Let the elites think they are pulling strings and just give it to them. But why not give it to them, but also try to extract money from them at the same time?
Therefore, if an 80-year-old is 300x more likely to die than 37-year-old Martin Shkreli, moving a dose from the former and to the latter is inefficient.
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…
Of course, the naïve view is that there is one known "healthy, functioning society" and that others are optimizing for greed or some other vice.
Use the vaccine to protect the people who are actually in danger. If a billionaire gets covid they can get the super special sci-fi insta-cure that every other person in power gets.
The solution to a public health communications issue is not 'get influencers on board' it's to amplify the science communicators who are already doing it, and public policy.