Europe's Vaccine Disaster • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#31

Post by nwj » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #23

MrRiddle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I’m not convinced it’s such a disaster it’s being portayed. Serbia is/was heavily hit by Covid, yet only 12% more people died in 2020 than 5 year average before that. Again, meh.

Only 12%? More than 1/10 of your population dies, literally more than a decimation by its old meaning, saying that this is not such a disaster is incredibly unempathetic. Or you have a very warped view of what consists a disaster...

You are confusing "12% more than the prior 5 year average" with "12% of the overall population".

Nevertheless, I agree it's a catastrophe.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#32

Post by mrtksn » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

I still don’t understand why EU did not consider the Chinese and Russian vaccines.

Very populous countries are getting them and any distrust towards the reporting of these vaccines could have been scrutinized(Turkey run its own "stage 3" on the Chinese one, got its own numbers and is inspecting the deliveries for 2 weeks before vaccinating the population).

Now we have this situation where EU is lagging behind very seriously and the allied countries say that they should have signed better contracts.

Okay, do your thing on TikTok and Huawei businesses in your trade war but not even considering buying vaccines from them then being left behind and and arguing on contract technicalities is not OK.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#33

Post by zoid_ » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #23

MrRiddle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I’m not convinced it’s such a disaster it’s being portayed. Serbia is/was heavily hit by Covid, yet only 12% more people died in 2020 than 5 year average before that. Again, meh.

Only 12%? More than 1/10 of your population dies, literally more than a decimation by its old meaning, saying that this is not such a disaster is incredibly unempathetic. Or you have a very warped view of what consists a disaster...

12% of the population? No, surely what's meant is an increase of 12% to the usual number of deaths per year.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#34

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #23

MrRiddle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I’m not convinced it’s such a disaster it’s being portayed. Serbia is/was heavily hit by Covid, yet only 12% more people died in 2020 than 5 year average before that. Again, meh.

Only 12%? More than 1/10 of your population dies, literally more than a decimation by its old meaning, saying that this is not such a disaster is incredibly unempathetic. Or you have a very warped view of what consists a disaster...

[deleted]

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#35

Post by roenxi » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #13

> The EU negotiating team, according to people familiar with the talks, was intent on pushing down the price. In the middle of a pandemic that is literally costing trillions, this seems like the EU negotiators lost sight of the big picture.

I assume literally the entire job of the negotiating team is to negotiate the price down. If their job isn't to negotiate the price down, what are the negotiators hired for?

If they are just going to take the market price, there doesn't need to be a negotiation team. Just let companies sell the vaccine to whoever at whatever price.

They didn't lose sight of the big picture, they did what they were there to do.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#36

Post by Hunisgung » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #19

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #13

> The EU negotiating team, according to people familiar with the talks, was intent on pushing down the price. In the middle of a pandemic that is literally costing trillions, this seems like the EU negotiators lost sight of the big picture.

More importantly for a vaccine that is sold at cost, the regional price that the IA got was $3 per dose, the commission stepped in trying to get it down to $2. Israel is paying $30 for its doses of the Pfizer vaccine and likely a similar amount for Moderna. If the EU would’ve paid as much as Israel is for 500M doses it would only cost them 15 billion $. That is peanuts in the grand scheme of things, the UK spent 16 b…

> the regional price that the IA got was $3 per dose, the commission stepped in trying to get it down to $2.

Meanwhile in France, I can do a RT-PCR test paid by the state (around 50$ AFAIK) every other day with no question asked.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#37

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #23

MrRiddle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I’m not convinced it’s such a disaster it’s being portayed. Serbia is/was heavily hit by Covid, yet only 12% more people died in 2020 than 5 year average before that. Again, meh.

Only 12%? More than 1/10 of your population dies, literally more than a decimation by its old meaning, saying that this is not such a disaster is incredibly unempathetic. Or you have a very warped view of what consists a disaster...

[deleted]

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#38

Post by cosmodisk » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:39 AM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #32

I still don’t understand why EU did not consider the Chinese and Russian vaccines. Very populous countries are getting them and any distrust towards the reporting of these vaccines could have been scrutinized(Turkey run its own "stage 3" on the Chinese one, got its own numbers and is inspecting the deliveries for 2 weeks before vaccinating the population). Now we have this situation where EU is lagging behind very se…

This is a political suicide in many countries+ the likelihood of people wanting to take it may be on the lower side.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#39

Post by wrnr » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

robotmay wrote: post #10

From what I've gathered (unfortunately mostly on Reddit, before this article), Ursula von der Leyen wasn't exactly fondly thought of in Germany before this and somehow keeps managing to fail upwards. Is that accurate? The utterly bonkers u-turn today was a bit of a shocker. For those that haven't seen the news, the European Commission managed to say they were effectively going to establish border controls between the…

No way UK is to blame for this, just pure arrogance of narcissistic EU commission trowing a temper tantrum about how it can't possibly be even wrong after having grabbed all responsibility for delivering the vaccine because it was her moment to shine after the brexit, and then start pointing fingers at the first set back.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#40

Post by Diggsey » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #35

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #13

> The EU negotiating team, according to people familiar with the talks, was intent on pushing down the price. In the middle of a pandemic that is literally costing trillions, this seems like the EU negotiators lost sight of the big picture.

I assume literally the entire job of the negotiating team is to negotiate the price down. If their job isn't to negotiate the price down, what are the negotiators hired for? If they are just going to take the market price, there doesn't need to be a negotiation team. Just let companies sell the vaccine to whoever at whatever price. They didn't lose sight of the big picture, they did what they were there to do.

A negotiation can be for anything: it could be to include additional safe-guards in the contract for example...

You could even negotiate a higher price in exchange for something more valuable (for example, paying extra per vaccine in exchange for building more capacity sooner...)