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Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

reuters.com

101–110 of 460 posts

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#101
post #81
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also lets not forget that this was specifically targeting the UK, not the rest of the world.

Are you saying EU specifically tried to ban export to UK while export to the rest of the world is ok?

There is/was a contract dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca regarding supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The EU wanted AstraZeneca to supply additional vaccine from it's UK-based factories, which are already contracted to supply the UK.

The export registration requirements (not an export ban) are, at least in part, in response to this dispute.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/30/lawyers-dis...

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite irrelevant to the point. And in fact the UK are also doing very well with vaccine rollout (and the army is involved). In Israel, where everyone has received a military training and is ready to organise, the IDF is of course very involved in the vaccine rollout though the Home Front Command. The supply of the vaccine is also controlled by the government, not private healthcare providers. But my point was…

IDF isn't involved in the vaccine rollout. And if your point was right, the lockdowns in Israel would have been much more effective and on time. The reality is the the first lockdown was removed too early, and the other lockdowns started too late with lame enforcement. Everyone who watches news in Israel can tell you that.

the involvement of the health plans in periodic drills of responses to military bioterror exercises [32] have apparently honed their capacity to work with the IDF and other organizations in emergency situations.

In addition to nurses employed by the health plans, supplemental staff were recruited from the Home Front Command of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), private companies, and others.

In the current vaccination campaign, the Home Front Command of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is playing several vital roles. It is responsible for ultra-cold storage of the vaccines in a central location, transporting those vaccines to a large number of vaccination sites, and also organizing vaccination sites in small localities [1]

IDF facilities have also provided 50% of all covid tests.

[1] https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13584-021-...

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#103
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wondering this myself too. Lockdowns are so expensive that I'd assume every unconventional method to expand the production is taken into use. The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems. I expect that the amount of angry people in EU will peak in spring or early summer when UK, US, and Israel are mostly back to normal and we are not.

The American factories are only producing for Americans. The European ones are producing for the whole world.

Some American factories are export restricted, Pfizer has set up production in the US which is cleared for export as they didn’t took any government funding for those production lines.

Israel is getting most of their doses from US factories not EU ones.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems. And yet this should have been the plan from the very beginning. Considering the vast numbers needed in Europe and the whole world, forcing all available production facilities to produce vaccines should have been part of the plan.

Absolutely, however the EU's politicians are playing dumb and claim that they couldn't foresee that mass production could be a problem. The EU ordered too late and simply not enough. Now they are trying to blame everyone else for their failure.

Yes, that's true, but it also has to be said that producing these vaccines is not so simple. It's all new technology, no mRNA vaccine was ever approved before, and you can't just dial up production so easily. Unfortunately. You can't just convert any old pill-factory into a factory that produces these vaccines. Apparently there are supply chain issues as well - some of the things that are needed for the production of this vaccine are in not available in the numbers that are required.

But all that being said, I think we should move to war-time production here.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American factories are only producing for Americans. The European ones are producing for the whole world.

Are they? Didn't the EU put up a vaccine export ban? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55860540

A Dutch facility is producing vaccines ( AZ ) for the UK, as they have been financed from the UK deal.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#107
post #98
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the EU had made different deals, doubling the price won't make production capacity appear out of nowhere. The UK and Israel can get vaccines in such large quantities because they are comparatively small countries. The EU might outbid those countries, but the gain of displacing them, while costing a lot, will distribute among the huge european population and thus will only shorten the wait period for individua…

There was time. I work in manufacturing, we plan factories years in advance of manufacturing start. Abandoned biotech factory cost is a drop in the ocean compared to weekly lockdown cost. Why countries failed here? If I would do such crap professionally, shelves of electronics stores would be empty.

Absolutely agree. They should have started such projects back in February/March 2020. But while small countries can obtain quicker deliveries by ordering better, for large countries this venue is not open as manufacturing capacities are limited. My point was that looking at the problem in terms of how you ordered is misguided. Instead you should look at it in terms of how you have failed to help the manufacturers to expand production capacities.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#108
The ads on pornhub telling you there's girls within 3 miles of your location wanting to hook up are more true than anything Jews say. Imagine if Pfizer could invent a vaccine for Palestinian kids to prevent lead poisoning when being shot up by the IDF

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#109
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying EU specifically tried to ban export to UK while export to the rest of the world is ok?

There is/was a contract dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca regarding supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The EU wanted AstraZeneca to supply additional vaccine from it's UK-based factories, which are already contracted to supply the UK. The export registration requirements (not an export ban ) are, at least in part, in response to this dispute. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/30/lawyers-dis...

There was misunderstanding and arrogance from EU bureaucrats about how business works. They have already tracked back ( Von Der Leyen in EU parliament, Merkel in media ).

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#110
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea but that's for first dosage given until end of June. That's still 4.5 months away. A long time considering thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths. Maybe paying a bit more would have been more intelligent (see Israel) than negotiating for months on end.

The problem was, as usual, EU countries' nationalism and wealth disparity. Macron insisted that the EU not order more doses from Germany's Biontech than from French Sanofi. So far so usual, but the worst problem were the Eastern European countries - they insisted on also keeping AstraZeneca with their 1.78€ a dose on board because well they are poor and can't afford more.

The EU bet pretty heavily on AstraZeneca and that's not the Eastern European countries fault. The EU already ordered in August, while they only ordered from Biontech and Moderna in November (11th and 25th). It wasn't wrong to buy AstraZeneca, it's cheap and more importantly easy to handle. The failure was to bet so much on it. AstraZeneca wasn't something that was odered as well, it was and still is THE vaccine that's intended for the largest part of the population.

Money also can't be an issue, the EU has come up with 750B euros to fight the economical impact of the pandemics. That was already in April or so. For the vaccine the EU only had around 2.7B available for most of 2020. The UK alone spent more than that, the US over 10B$. The worst thing: 2B of those 2.7B euros were simply repurposed from an already existing fund. That means the EU states only had to come up with 700M euros together in total. Even ignoring all of that, the vaccine is so cheap compared to the costs of lockdowns (and lives) that the price simply does not matter much. Ironically the price they got is the part the EU is especially proud of and EU politicans are quick to point out that Israel payed twice as much per dose.

What they don't say that the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine's price depends on the amount and delivery date. So you could actually pay more to get the vaccine sooner. It seems the EU chose not to do that because they felt good enough with AstraZeneca (they were supposed to start production in October). Unfortunately that information isn't public so we don't know for sure. But this would both explain why the EU didn't expect significant shipments from Non-AZ vaccines in the first quarter and why they got it cheaper.

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