311–320 of 569 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Will you then also pay those who put huge effort and expense in to research that was perhaps necessary but didn't lead anywhere?
Most research is government funded
Most basic research is government funded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not how it works. The Spanish Flu hasn't "come back" yet and coronaviruses mutate a lot more slowly. It couldn't really come back anyway, because it's still there, downgraded to regular flu.
> The Spanish Flu hasn't "come back" yet Yes it has, most recently in 2009. From Wikipedia: “ Well known outbreaks of H1N1 strains in humans include the 2009 swine flu pandemic, as well as the Spanish flu.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that in cases of overwhelming national interests patents and licensing should be ignored if they stand in the way. But: this is not a medicine made of a molecule that can be synthesised by the chemical industry. Such a vaccine requires input from the creator and then specialist equipment to manufacture. Poor countries don't have the infrastructure to manufacture and the creator labs are not going to tell you…
In the context of the vaccination rush I often wonder how military aircraft procurement was doing it when extreme r&d progress and extreme mass production were coinciding during ww2. New types were developed by companies (even the Soviets maintained a healthy competition between design bureaus) but once a type was established and in volume demand it apparently was manufactured wherever a production line could be adap…
These programs were federally-funded with the goal to produce as much as possible. For production I'm sure that factories were financially compensated for the work.
"These preliminary data indicate that the vaccine is 70.4% effective, with tests on two different dose regimens showing that the vaccine was 90% effective if administered at a half dose and then at a full dose, or 62% effective if administered in two full doses."
Isn't it more common to determine the dosing regime in Phase I/II trials, and use the Phase III trial as the final test for efficacy?
My guess is the lighter dose is really slightly less effective, but the same size is so small that statistical issues make it seem better than it really is.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/23/coronavirus-sc...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The notion of distributing a billion copies of a vaccine at -80°C to every corner of the planet seems rather resource intensive.
Dry ice is very common, and you get 5 days at refrigerator temperature. Everywhere in the world is reachable in 5 days if you need to. It gets really expensive to charter flights to many areas, but it is possible if you have money to burn. Of course we now have reason to believe that vaccines that don't need dry ice will be approved, so logistics will direct the easier to ship ones to remote places.
Most of the producers have had their entire capacity bought out in prep for distribution of the vaccine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if because the Oxford vaccine has taken an already tested and approved vaccine approach it has a higher chance of safety than the other 2 which use a new approach that has never been approved by regulators before.
Is there precedent for the Oxford vaccine? I didn’t realise that.
Here [1] it says the vaccine was designed mostly over the weekend of 11th Jan 2020. Here we are 10 months later and we know it works. If our knowledge of vaccine design is so good experts can design a vaccine that works over a weekend, what new breakthroughs are required to reduce the time between then and now substantially? A lot of benefit could have been had if we'd been able to get along this path more quickly. […
It is the classic "make a baby in 9 months with 9 women" dilemma. There is no way around conducting a trial and waiting long enough until you see what happens to the participants.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, Johnson & Johnson (a US company) also made a similar pledge to AstraZeneca. These two companies have collectively received more than $1.5 billion from the US government [1]. As I understand it, Pfizer have not taken any federal funding. They do have government purchase agreements, but they are dependent on Pfizer delivering a viable vaccine. Their partner BioNTech received German government funding: Berli…
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oxford one is also going to be easier to manufacture given that it is based on existing technology. Many countries e.g. Australia are licensing the formula so this is an important aspect.
I read the opposite - producing mRNA fragments at scale is supposedly cheaper than producing the inactivated vector viruses with the correct payload.