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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?

#71

Post by maxerickson »

exabrial wrote: post #68
rightbyte wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is not an issue here. Current resources is.

Doesn't it take money to increase the supply of a good? A manufacturer making bank on a product is going to reinvest that into his supply chain, increasing the overall supply... a good thing for everyone, which eventually, depresses prices and makes said goods commodity and affordable for everyone.

The existing purchase guarantees completely swamp any extra demand from private bidders.

Say you got a million (or 10 million) people to pay extra (it'd be lot of people at that point); the manufacturing demand wouldn't go up any, and they would probably just delay delivery of some other doses for a week (or a month).

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

#72

Post by samizdis »

kippinitreal wrote: post #66

IMO the best reason for this isn’t even to raise funds, but rather because the rich/connected are going to do this anyways (and get away with it) so we might as well decrimalize it and make a dollar off of them in the process. I’d rather encourage them to give more money to the government than to see how low they go to validate their “essentialness”. It’s not even clear to me that this is such a terrible way to alloc…

> IMO the best reason for this isn’t even to raise funds, but rather because the rich/connected are going to do this anyways (and get away with it)

An interesting point, and one made in another STAT article [1] from earlier this month - which is linked to from the more recent article:

‘There absolutely will be a black market’: How the rich and privileged can skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines

[1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/03/how-rich-and-privileged-...

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

#73

Post by s1artibartfast »

maxerickson wrote: post #70
s1artibartfast wrote: post #22

The article assumes the vaccine can only be sourced from the US Gov. This brings up some interesting questions about access direct from the manufacturers. When will the manufacturers backorder obligations be filled so they sell the vaccine on the open market? Do they have any contractual requirements to sell through government determined channels?

The authorization is limited: https://www.fda.gov/media/144636/download "ModernaTX, Inc. will supply Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine either directly or through authorized distributor(s), to emergency response stakeholders as directed by the U.S. government, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and/or other designee, for use consistent with the terms and conditions of this EUA;" So they don't have p…

Thank you for this! It appears that it is a condition of the Emergency Use Authorization. That would not preclude Moderna going through the full approval process and marketing the product.

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

#74

Post by maxerickson »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #73
maxerickson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The authorization is limited: https://www.fda.gov/media/144636/download "ModernaTX, Inc. will supply Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine either directly or through authorized distributor(s), to emergency response stakeholders as directed by the U.S. government, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and/or other designee, for use consistent with the terms and conditions of this EUA;" So they don't have p…

Thank you for this! It appears that it is a condition of the Emergency Use Authorization. That would not preclude Moderna going through the full approval process and marketing the product.

Right, they can and likely will file a "Biologics License Application", but they do not presently have permission to market it.

https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

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

#75

Post by s1artibartfast »

exabrial wrote: post #68
rightbyte wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is not an issue here. Current resources is.

Doesn't it take money to increase the supply of a good? A manufacturer making bank on a product is going to reinvest that into his supply chain, increasing the overall supply... a good thing for everyone, which eventually, depresses prices and makes said goods commodity and affordable for everyone.

I think this includes a number of questionable assumptions.

1) The money would go to the manufacturer.

2) The supply limiting factor can be addressed in a reasonable timeline

3) The demand will exist at the time when supply is increased.

4) The price is a limiting factor.

As far as I know, lead times for this drug manufacturing equipment is usually >1 yr and the demand will not be there when it arrives. All of the vaccines currently cost $2-20.

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

#77

Post by _qwfv »

xur17 wrote: post #53
_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…

> But no, this is someone suggesting celebrities and billionaires should be the first people we protect. 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 represen…

By charging $500,000 per dose? You think there are 100k people who would pay that?

Also, if this was a cause the billionaires believed in, they could just give $500,000 to vaccination efforts and also give up their spot in line. Nothing stopping them from just being charitable without expecting anything in exchange.

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

#78

Post by s1artibartfast »

I expect there will be plenty of vaccine to around pretty soon.

There are five more manufacturers which were funded by operation warp seed and are various stages of development.

There is also the Chinese vaccine SinoVac, which has stated there will be capacity to manufacture 600 million doses a year by the end of 2020, with another 350 million doses/yr in Indonesia and Brazil.

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

#80

Post by Pfhreak »

vorpalhex wrote: post #49
_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 ba…

You are describing philanthropy, which is definitely not "basically a tax".
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