Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Europe's Vaccine Disaster

spiegel.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 434 posts

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#221

Post by kachurovskiy »

pelasaco wrote: post #204
TheMechanist wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian scientists have first discussed Sputnik V with EMA (EU's medicine agency) 5 days ago: https://www.msn.com/en-xl/europe/top-stories/russia-files-sp... ; Hungary, which is part of the EU, has already given the vaccine emergency authorization. However, vaccination in Hungary is lagging behind its neighbors Austria and Romania due low levels of trust (in the Russian vaccine) and general antivaxx sentiment. Th…

It wouldn´t surprise me if Russia and China prioritize to sell the vaccines to other countries than attend their own population.

My parents near Moscow got a shot within a few days after asking for it.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#222

Post by DrBazza »

matzab wrote: post #198
flembat wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the UK and while in the EU I thought we were part of the world's reasonable ethical block, but now from outside it is apparent how badly the EU bullies and intimidates other countries.

A significant part of the vaccines the UK has administered were produced in EU factories. Now that the EU tries to do the same as countries like the UK and the US do - not exporting - they are bullies? Right.

> A significant part of the vaccines the UK has administered were produced in EU factories

Yes, and those vaccines are, or were, only approved for use in the UK, the EU, only yesterday finally approved the AZ vaccine, 3 months after the UK. So who else are the pharma companies going to ship those vaccines to, when the shelf life is weeks or months?

There is a global supply chain at work here, from the substances for the vaccines, to the equipment, and even skilled labour used to produce them. Very little of that, if any, is subject to export bans.

The UK does not have an export ban on vaccines. The EU is free to sign contracts with any vaccine supplier in the UK. But history seems to be repeating itself again. The EU hasn't signed with Novavax, who have just passed trials. The UK signed 5 months ago, and it will be produced in NE England. [0]

0. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1390787/EU-vaccine-deal...

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#223

Post by papaf »

mikem170 wrote: post #159
outside1234 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer to that is: “Are you the one person?”

That's a personal disaster, but not a disaster for society.

Yes it is. Once hospitals fill and no longer function you are living in a society without healthcare.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#224

Post by triceratops »

esja wrote: post #217
triceratops wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the plan? Other than "let the states handle it". Which is the same as "no plan".

Right now a lot of people are getting vaccinated - an unprecedented achievement. Did that happen by magic? That’s one example that a federal plan existed, and there are plenty of others if you care to look for yourself. It’s been 12 months now since the US banned flights from China. A lot has happened since then. People can differ on whether the federal plan was a good one (I happen to believe it wasn’t very good), b…

> Right now a lot of people are getting vaccinated

But we are far behind schedule and projections. 20m people were supposed be vaccinated in December. Only 1m were actually vaccinated.[1] 5% is a failing grade.

> That’s one example that a federal plan existed

Even the federal vaccination plan under Trump was essentially "leave it to the states". Now I accept that in these circumstances state governments are better equipped to understand the needs of their people. But if the communication about shipments - size and dates - is bad, states can't plan efficiently. And that's what happened.[2]

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/23/covid-vaccine-us-has-vaccina...

2. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/27/ron-klain/...

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#225

Post by petre »

jorvi wrote: post #201
outside1234 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU did not pay as much as the US — and signed the contracts much later. Pfizer is doing the rational actor thing and, given a shortage, prioritizing their highest paying clients. There might also be verbiage in the US contract to this effect. Also, Pfizer is an American company.

> Also, Pfizer is an American company. BioNtech is a German company. If it would come down to national egotism, BioNtech would just kill the licensing deal and Pfizer wouldn't be allowed to produce anything.

I think there are consequences steming out from killing a contractual agreement. They can however license Sanofi and others to produce the vaccine, which is what will be eventually done.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#226

Post by saiya-jin »

simongray wrote: post #179
corty wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mishandling of COVID is on the EU to a large part. Not only for the vaccine procurement. The EU also, for a very long time, actively prevented meaningful border inspections and border lockdowns that would have prevented a lot of spillover from hard-hit to not-so-hard-hit countries. E.g. in county-level charts you can see which ones border on high- and low-COVID neighbours.

What are you talking about? Countries have been closing borders left and right, the EU hasn't prevented this.

That's a joke - even during the strictest lockdowns, you could travel easily across europe if wanted. Yes often you end up in quarantine at the destination, that is largely not enforced so just best hope. But if you cross 5 states while getting to your destination, they just let you through.

Has been like that since... whole covid. We traveled from west to east and back 4x during 2020 through 4 countries, never any issue, mostly no border controls.

The only exception was when French imposed strict lockdown and limited people to 1km around their house. That lasted couple of weeks. That's it. Even right now you can travel freely within EU.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#227

Post by beagle3 »

jackTheMan wrote: post #84
mrtksn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese and the Russian vaccines were not even considered. Now those are used in mass vaccinations, soon EU would be behind all countries but those who barely have any government at all. People don't even want to talk about that, as if those alternatives don't exists. Non-EU countries in Europe are getting them. Serbia(6.1) and Turkey(2.3) are already close to EU average(2.6) or better on the vaccination process.

I wonder if the Chinese vaccine with 50% efficiency could be used for herd immunity at all. Im not a virologyst, but the false safety of most people vaccinated with it in a country might could trigger even more death? The Chinese vaccine is not even tested above 59 years old. If the young is vaccinated and start to party etc the new more infectious variants could still spread and can reach even more elderly.

It should be noted that this is likely nit worse than Pfizer, despite marketing. The 50% for Sinovac is real world data; the 95% for Pfizer comes from company phase 3 data.

Well, last night a reputable Israeli HMO posted it’s real world data for Pfizer, and it’s 50% after 18 days and doesnt seem to get much better (but they don’t have enough data yet to know for sure).

And now, although everyone claims Pfizer says you get 50% after 1st dose and 95# after second, if you read the actual filing, that’s not what it says; efficiency is achieved at day 13 by Pfizer data almost fully; and the reduction in severe disease (the only interesting endpoint) is 75% with confidence interval 0-100%

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#228

Post by jeofken »

fabbari wrote: post #43
jeofken wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden the death rate during 2020 was equal to the average for the last 10 years. We had zero restrictions until a couple of months ago.

No - it wasn't, head over to EuroMomo and you'll find out that it was over[0]. Not only that, compare the excess mortality with your neighbors and the "Sweden did fine without lockdowns" sounds hollow. That would explain the restrictions. Consider that the excess mortality is just a small indicator that things didn't go well - if you plug in the equation a reduction of deaths due to other causes you figure out pretty…

Thank you - I appreciate a correction with sources. I had based my understanding on a report by the Swedish government central statistics bureau, that stated no excess deaths in 2020 on average, but an increase in Q1-Q2 and decrease in Q3-Q4. (Can dig up a link if anyone is interested).

It is also clear from your link that deaths was unaffected by government forcing lockdowns. Lockdowns certainly do have an effect on freedom and economics though - creating a huge dependence on hand outs for millions, and a lost year of youth for a generation.

In your link it’s clear there was two minor bumps - “Low excess”.

Still, it was good to retain relative freedom throughout the year. My friends in DK and NO live in fear - a friends mother doesn’t leave the apartment for a year, friends lost each other, thousands of lovers never met, weddings not happening, and massive unemployment (doesn’t affect HN tech workers who can humblebrag about getting take out food).

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#229

Post by beagle3 »

ggm wrote: post #171
Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Sinovac CoronaVac efficacy is not useless, but not very good from what I've read. Gam-COVID-Vac on the other hand is around 91% https://sputnikvaccine.com/newsroom/pressreleases/the-sputni... , which is quite good while not reaching Pfizer/BioNTech's 95% (the German firm BioNTech developed the vaccine, they partnered with Pfizer to test, manufacture, and distribute it).

You do know that the error bars on 91% and 94% could make the inverse outcome or equality as likely as your belief in the 94%-is-better..

Not to mention, the 95% is on the relatively uninteresting “mild disease” endpoint. Israeli data came out in the last 24h on severe disease - and it’s only 50% RRR

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#230

Post by [deleted] »

pelasaco wrote: post #208
cosmodisk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also pro-EU,remainer,etc. The problem is that the EU is the political graveyard, because countries send the most absurd people there. Not all of them,of course,but a lot. EU works when things are going slow and because of the sheer economical scale and power, everybody takes it serious when it comes to negotiations. But the EC isn't a bunch of experts on rapid situations. It's exactly the same when a French civil…

thats true. At least in Germany, you are just sent to the EU Parlament if you re not performing well in the country level.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN