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Europe's Vaccine Disaster

spiegel.de

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Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#111

Post by freeflight »

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…

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

Politics, that's pretty much it.

For months now people have been indoctrinated that nothing good could ever come out of China or Russia.

A lot of that facilitated by misleading headlines about how their vaccines were supposedly "rushed" and somehow disregarding approval processes, as if that wasn't happening pretty much everywhere.

A narrative that solely rests on embezzling the fact that there is no global authority on pharma approval, every country sets up their own rules.

Throw in some really sensationalized and misleading headlines about how they supposedly force people to be guinea pigs for their vaccines, and both of these vaccines have become so toxic, publicity wise, that even considering them would be a political death sentence in many Western countries.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#112

Post by tehjoker »

outside1234 wrote: post #105
Gravityloss wrote: post #80

There's lots of medical companies in most countries of EU. Why didn't they just license some working vaccine and start cranking it out? Why does the company X developed medicine only have to be made by company X? That's against the whole idea of patents, which is making information available and usable via licensing. Money shouldn't be the issue, the cost of the shots is negligible so there is not much profit to be m…

There were multiple efforts - but no reason to collaborate. And the French effort utterly failed to the point that they gave up. And Germany’s BioNTech signed an exclusive deal with Pfizer.

If the vaccines were developed publicly, there would be no reason not to collaborate.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#113

Post by volkl48 »

smnrchrds wrote: post #59
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.

> EU would be behind all countries but those who barely have any government at all. Ouch. Reading this from Canada hurts. (We are way behind EU and I would be very surprised if we get ahead of them at any point).

Uh, why do you think that?

You don't appear to be behind the EU in any substantial way. (2.61 doses/100 administered for EU, 2.49/100 for Canada)

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...

----

You've purchased more vaccine relative to population than basically anyone else in the world and you appear to be higher than the EU in terms of the line for deliveries.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#114

Post by outside1234 »

mikem170 wrote: post #61
piva00 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

No, In Sweden 1144 out of every million people have died [0], which equates to 1 out of every 874 people. Does 1 out of 874 people dead, mostly elderly and/or with comorbidities, sound bad? Picture a room with 874 people. That's a lot of people. Ask 1 person to leave. Is that a disaster for society? [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

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

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#115

Post by newacct583 »

Gravityloss wrote: post #80

There's lots of medical companies in most countries of EU. Why didn't they just license some working vaccine and start cranking it out? Why does the company X developed medicine only have to be made by company X? That's against the whole idea of patents, which is making information available and usable via licensing. Money shouldn't be the issue, the cost of the shots is negligible so there is not much profit to be m…

It's not clear to me that there is any idle production capacity. Pfizer, Moderna and AZ got to the approval gate first, but they started their lines months in advance knowing they needed to start delivering orders. I assume that's true of everywhere.

The simple truth is that there is no plausible way to deliver all the vaccines that nations want to inject right now, and given the size of the project there's no way that distribution is going to be fair. That is true at local levels (c.f. media stories of US boutique clinics getting vaccine before urban hospitals) and global ones the same.

The US and UK have an advantage of larger existing pharma industries and so have a head start, leading to grief in Europe like the linked article. But... this wasn't really resolvable. If it wasn't the EU it would have been someone else unexpectedly behind. No one's going to be happy until we're all vaccinated.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#116

Post by Gibbon1 »

trianglem wrote: post #56
sn41 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was due to the lessons from SARS-Cov1 in 2003. Asian countries that did not suffer from SARS-Cov1 did very badly with covid-19. e.g. India. In India the misinformation was uniquely Indian - first they said that vegetarians will not get Covid, it came from bushmeat (ignoring the fact that human-to-human transmission was through cough droplets), then they said that Yoga fights Covid, then they blamed it on a minor…

India did badly for the same reason the US and Brazil did so badly. Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments that relied on misinformation and half truths, had no plan and basically shifted blame and tried to save face. India actually probably did the best out of all three considering Modi at least isn’t a science denialist.

My long term observation of humanity is most people try to solve every problem with whatever strategy that's been working for them. Vs anything practical and appropriate.

Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments tried bullshitting and gaslighting to combat the virus.

Me I'm an introverted hermit. Been working well so far.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#117

Post by freeflight »

partiallypro wrote: post #42
marcinzm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has twice the per capita covid deaths as Germany. Great success right there, hurrah!

Germany's death rate since the fall is higher than the US though. The US largely bungled the initial response, where as Europe seems to have bungled the ongoing problem.

> Germany's death rate since the fall is higher than the US though.

That is, if you actually trust the latest data coming out of the US, which could be a very misleading thing to do [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-cor...

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#118

Post by ajross »

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.

Sure it can. Vaccines are only one part of the puzzle. With 50% population immunity you need far (far) less natural immunity to reach an R number less than one, at which point outbreaks don't grow anymore.

Obviously these magical mRNA vaccines with their 95% numbers are going to be more effective. But that's just a (very) happy scientific accident that they worked out. Historically vaccines haven't been anywhere near that effective and have still controlled disease. Hell, the flu shots we get are like 30% effective and they still save lives every year.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#119

Post by mikem170 »

maxerickson wrote: post #99
mikem170 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people in our democracy might not agree with your assessment of this pandemic. A lot of people feel that 1 in 750 people dying, mostly older with comorbidities, is not the disaster for society that some seem to think it is. A lot of people think that giving up a year or two of their social and economic lives is not worth trying to avoid a 1 in 750, or 0.13%, chance of dying. Especially those, like the young,…

More people die the less you control the spread of the virus, the overall death rate at this point in time is not a good gauge of the potential impact of the pandemic.

But we live in democracies, and there are a lot of people who feel differently than you might. Not just Trump. They look at the same numbers and dangers and don't agree.

Besides, the authority and responsibility to respond to a pandemic (issue health orders, closings, quarantines, and lock downs) rests with the states and not the president or congress.

EDIT: removed a remark about Fauci and herd immunity, I thought I read this but couldn't find a reference. My apologies.

Re: Europe's Vaccine Disaster

#120

Post by neximo64 »

Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #50

Some had faith in the new mRNA technology, while others preferred to rely on more time-tested methods. Sometimes articles hide a great deal in one seemingly innocuous sentence. From what I've learned from Europeans, there's only one vaccine candidate of that nature the EU considered, a Sanofi Pasteur/GlaxoSmithKline combo, the former providing the infamous spike protein, the latter an adjuvant. Everyone expected this…

You're saying this despite the weekly pcr and different efficacy testing methods?
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