covid-19

I get that, but you can't argue with it can you? Because its right, as I was right since about June last year when I started speaking about vaccine contracts on this thread, let alone from January when discussions became heated.

So yes I feel entitled to keep making the point that this was right considering how much odure certain people here chose to fling through months of lies and insults on this subject. When I get things wrong I have the dignity to put my hands up and acknowledge it. So since there's been no closure here I'll have some fun here instead.

We had some people here so illiterately arguing that the EU spending less than the UK did on vaccine procurement, or signing contracts three months later, had no impact on vaccine procurement.
We even had some people here with such a lack of basic integrity that they were defending outright lies that the EU had caught up with the UK on distributing vaccines.
Look how that has turned out now? It really shouldn't be difficult to put hands up and admit that was a lie, even get outraged that they'd been lied to rather than defend it.

If we can make fun of Lewk for his idiocy defending lynchings, I think I can make fun of those who spent months defending those who squandered the opportunity to invest in vaccines then lied about it - and haven't got the self-respect or integrity to admit they were either talking bullshit or suckered into lies.

That things are going better now though is definitely good news, it is good to see people eventually doing the right thing even if it took months and tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths per week to catch up.

There's plenty of things to argue with wrt your finger pointing, I just agree that cost is no object when it comes to covid vaccination. But even there I want to argue and take on the whole ethical question of vaccine nationalism just because you're being obnoxious.

If you don't like how someone isn't telling you they're sorry, just ignore them. I certainly have chosen not to engage with some people here because I don't find it a meaningful exchange. Feel free to do the same.

I don't like vaccine nationalism either, I've said it is repugnant to block vaccine exports from legally signed contracts (something some people here have entertained, not me) and I've not had a dig against Israel or the USA or any other nation that chose to invest in vaccine procurement. Nationalism hasn't caused these issues, and there should be no schaudenfreude from others suffering - but the the issue as was raised months ago were that certain nations chose to penny pinch on vaccine procurement. Had the EU spent the same levels the USA and UK did per capita the whole world would be in a much better position now.

I'm capable of ignoring people, but I find it more entertaining right now to get the final words in showing just how right I was and just how wrong they were. Even if it comes across as a bit obnoxious, even if they're not big enough to respond, hopefully they'll read it and get the point. ;) Certain people have had no objection to being obnoxious themselves, even when defending outright lies. The problem is there's an echo chamber online in some places with fake news merchants like Tucker Carlson, Dave Keating etc and certain people here got sucked into believing their lies.

Anyway, away from that discussion and entirely unrelated, it was nice to see two significant landmarks reached in the UK. Fifty percent of the population vaccinated and one fifth of the population with both doses.
https://i.ibb.co/yycGPBW/image.png
https://i.ibb.co/jwqjFyV/image.png

Age range for vaccination eligibility has been lowered again now to 42. Won't be long now, fingers-crossed, until I'll be eligible.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

RB, I don't even disagree with your basic point all that much (though I haven't bothered to check the truth of the underlying assumptions), but the self-congratulatory and passive aggressive way in which you make it makes me want to argue with you.

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Didn't you get the memo?

The UK Can Do No Wrong (TM)

https://bestanimations.com/media/uk/...cons-gif-4.gif

A comparison to Freddie? I can live with that!

Dave Keating—former editor of The Economist's EuropeanVoice—with an update on the vaccine passport discussion:

Twitter Link

Haven't had time to read the doc yet.

Though that's a rather dry Tweet this time, Comedy Dave Keating has as much integrity as Tucker Carlson. Its funny to see you quote from him. :haha:

Though even in that Tweet, Comedy Dave trying to equate the EU with the US Congress is rather amusing. It will be interesting to see the next set of elections to the European Senate Council. :haha:

Twitter Link

I wonder if Comedy Dave has heard of the seventeenth amendment?

WSJ reporting AstraZeneca's application for EUA authorization—initially expected to be completed by mid-April—is now expected to be delayed until mid-May, presumably due to the growing complexity of the submission:

AstraZeneca Struggles With Data Needed for Covid-19 Vaccine’s Approval

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AstraZeneca PLC executives have struggled to pull together the full data necessary to apply for U.S. approval of its Covid-19 shot, according to people familiar with the matter, further delaying its efforts to secure the Food and Drug Administration’s go-ahead.

The company said last month that it would apply for what is known as emergency use authorization for its vaccine by mid-April. It has recently told U.S. officials it might need until mid-May to finish its application for an FDA review, according to one of these people.

[...]

An AstraZeneca spokeswoman said this week that the company is progressing in its preparation of the FDA submission but declined to give a timetable.

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Article touches on the signaling aspect, but I don't believe it is as consequential—from a global perspective—as they're making it out to be, given the demand for all covid vaccines (including Sputnik's and SinoVac's); desperation is a powerful motivator. Don't really think this is all that good for Janssen/J&J either.

Just got a text inviting me to an appointment, going tomorrow morning. :)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0KrN_oW...name=4096x4096
Fascinating map. What the hell is going on in Sweden?

Covidiots were banging on about Sweden for ages, but I haven't heard anything about them for a while. Remarkable to contrast Sweden with the rest of Scandinavia.

Also interesting to see even though national borders aren't shown on this map there's certain nations that really pop out. Portugal have got this right down now too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Just got a text inviting me to an appointment, going tomorrow morning. :)

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:up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Just got a text inviting me to an appointment, going tomorrow morning. :)

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Good news. Enjoy!

Oh, my advice is to take some paracetamol beforehand.

Yeh, paracetamol.

12 hours or so after the shot we were both fairly wiped out. Aches, chills, eventual headaches, fatigue, brain-fog. Jab arm was particularly sore. Eventually took paracetamol which helped matters.

24 hours later pretty much back to normal.

2nd shot in.

Thanks for the advice. I don't have any paracetamol in, I normally have ibuprofen in, does it make a difference? Might pick some up on the way if it does.

Glad you got your 2nd shot Fuzzy :)

No difference ibuprofen or paracetamol here.

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Originally Posted by Timbuk2

24 hours later pretty much back to normal.

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Took a few days for me, was far worse after the second than the first.

Kids had their second doses today.

Definitely glad to have it done, though. Particularly since even the half-ass measures we had here have now been eliminated.

Brussels-based American-European journalist—and former editor of The Economist Group's European Voice newspaper—Dave Keating with more details on the proposed covid status & vaccine passport scheme:

Twitter Link

Click through for thread. Especially interesting is this claim:

Twitter Link

If true, EU citizens who have either been vaccinated or been verified covid positive in the past will be free to travel between EU member states without having to quarantine—but so will people who have tested negative within the past few days, which is a significant loophole.

The scheme is intended to be used for travel only, but can be expanded by member states, should they choose to implement it for domestic use:

Twitter Link

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/u...ravel-ban.html

Remember when Biden called Trump xenophobic for his China travel ban? ;)

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/u...ravel-ban.html

Remember when Biden called Trump xenophobic for his China travel ban? ;)

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https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ump-xenophobi/
Cause fuck context, right?

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ump-xenophobi/
Cause fuck context, right?

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Remember when 40.000 americans came home from China after the ban?

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/u...ravel-ban.html

Remember when Biden called Trump xenophobic for his China travel ban? ;)

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Remember when infection and death rates just kept going up while Trump was in office but have nose-dived now that Biden is President?

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Remember when infection and death rates just kept going up while Trump was in office but have nose-dived now that Biden is President?

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You actually don't really think this - but on the off chance you were that stupid:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra...ilytrendscases

Obvious trend line going down, and do you really think Biden's day 1 shit actually are what caused covid deaths to drop? Come on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

You actually don't really think this - but on the off chance you were that stupid:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra...ilytrendscases

Obvious trend line going down, and do you really think Biden's day 1 shit actually are what caused covid deaths to drop? Come on.

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No you're right. Biden started before day 1 because a certain toddler was too busy with throwing his toys out of the pram to be distracted by trivialities like actually rolling out the vaccine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ump-xenophobi/
Cause fuck context, right?

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You need to post this as an image, preferably as a cartoon. Lewk doesn't read.

Careful easing of restrictions in Belgium:

Twitter Link

Some more details:

https://euobserver.com/coronavirus/151544

Some of these changes, combined with human nature, will likely lead to a small surge among working-age adults as well as teens over the next few weeks. 80% of Belgians over 65 are expected to have gotten their first dose of a covid vaccine by the end of the week, but coverage among working-age adults is obv. much lower, and schools reopening will increase their likelihood of exposure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

You actually don't really think this - but on the off chance you were that stupid:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra...ilytrendscases

Obvious trend line going down, and do you really think Biden's day 1 shit actually are what caused covid deaths to drop? Come on.

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I think it's clearly a stronger claim than your attempted blast at Biden.

Got the 1st Pfizer dose today.

Excellent news. :) :up:

Twitter Link

Context:

https://apnews.com/article/drug-comp...be007f8887bcf6

I really don't understand the big push for patent waivers. It's not the rate limiting step, tech transfer is. The big 4 companies that are currently scaling up production of their Western approved vaccines are having trouble even doing internal scaling and transfer to new mfg facilities; doing so to an external entity with different institutional knowledge and quality systems is several times more challenging.

Some of the vaccines coming down the pipeline are made in more traditional (albeit slower) ways and may be more amenable to rapid transfer. JNJ and AZN currently are close enough to existing technologies that they could be transferred or licensed without too much trouble to another major and experienced industry partner - things that indeed have happened with e.g. Serum Institute of India (we've also seen lending/pooling of mfg resources from other industry players even without explicit licensing). But even with 'easy' JNJ and AZN technologies, going to a newbie is a recipe for wasted effort and huge yield/quality issues.

But the mRNA vaccines? No way in hell that anyone is going to be able to easily transfer this technology or replicate the technology without help. It's new and incredibly hard. Hell, Moderna said last year that they weren't going to enforce their patents on the vaccine but no one has been lining up to make it because without a huge amount of help from Moderna you're not going to be able to replicate it.

This is not like a traditional small molecule drug with a single API of known structure you need to replicate and throw in some excipients. This is essentially a complex biologic and delivery system that would take years and many billions of dollars of investment to replicate without active involvement of the inventors. And compelling tech transfer is likely a much tougher sell than waiving patent restrictions. Honestly, the main reason Pfizer partnered with BioNTech probably had less to do with trying to make money off the vaccine itself (though it hasn't been bad for their bottom line or their public image) but because it allowed them to 'freely' get access to very sophisticated mRNA delivery systems that are going to be the basis for an entire class of drugs (not just vaccines) in the coming years. Moderna and Pfizer aren't just going to give away that kind of specialized tribal knowledge, and patents aren't very useful for replicating that kind of knowledge.

For a non-drug but relevant example: my own company is making an entirely new class of materials. We have IP, sure, and we aggressively pursue a strong IP portfolio to try to minimize the proliferation of 'me too' products. But our biggest protections are our trade secrets - if I was handed the final product along with every scrap of publicly available information about my company's technology, I am not sure that I would be able to replicate it in any reasonable time frame.

It makes sense to focus on things that will help in concrete ways: improving supply chains for raw materials, working on partnerships to pool mfg resources and/or licensure, encouraging tech transfer when appropriate. Waiving patents doesn't really help all that much and just sets up a contentious and adversarial relationship when you absolutely need these companies to play ball in scaling global mfg of these vaccines.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wiggin

I really don't understand the big push for patent waivers. It's not the rate limiting step, tech transfer is. The big 4 companies that are currently scaling up production of their Western approved vaccines are having trouble even doing internal scaling and transfer to new mfg facilities; doing so to an external entity with different institutional knowledge and quality systems is several times more challenging.

Some of the vaccines coming down the pipeline are made in more traditional (albeit slower) ways and may be more amenable to rapid transfer. JNJ and AZN currently are close enough to existing technologies that they could be transferred or licensed without too much trouble to another major and experienced industry partner - things that indeed have happened with e.g. Serum Institute of India (we've also seen lending/pooling of mfg resources from other industry players even without explicit licensing). But even with 'easy' JNJ and AZN technologies, going to a newbie is a recipe for wasted effort and huge yield/quality issues.

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A) many aren't aware of the complexities in production. They should be but aren't. B) you're forgetting how much graft potential there is in poorly-thought-out investment projects like this.

I'm less confused about politicians who don't know anything and more about the NGO and public health types who've been pushing for it - they should know that this isn't really the long pole.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

A) many aren't aware of the complexities in production. They should be but aren't. B) you're forgetting how much graft potential there is in poorly-thought-out investment projects like this.

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I don't think the expectation is that developing countries are gonna reverse-engineer the vaccine production processes from scratch; the hope is that waivers will help remove obstacles such as licensing requirements. In the short-to-medium term, this would help eg. India and its neighbouring countries start up production at more sites, which can then help supply the region with vaccines more effectively. Most of the requisite knowledge is already available in the region, as companies like AstraZeneca and J&J have already started up production in India, partnering with proven local biotech firms; retasking other plants in the region to produce finished vaccine product is about as feasible as it is to do so in eg. Europe, and it will be useful to do so even if it takes several more months to get production rolling—because these extremely populous regions will need to keep producing and administering vaccines at breakneck speed at least for the remainder of the year, and probably well into 2022, even after the global pandemic is determined to be over. In the medium-to-long term, the same freedom from licensing requirements would help these countries respond more swiftly to future outbreaks, forestalling future disasters driven by new variants. Wiggins's company and their product line are a very different matter, for a large number of reasons.

In other news, all members of a Swedish choir—originally founded to save students from dying of boredom during a cholera lockdown—contract covid after a church performance during a pandemic involving a respiratory virus whose transmission is facilitated by loud singing in enclosed spaces.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

In other news, all members of a Swedish choir—originally founded to save students from dying of boredom during a cholera lockdown—contract covid after a church performance during a pandemic involving a respiratory virus whose transmission is facilitated by loud singing in enclosed spaces.

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That's about how smart I think Swedes are. It's probably also why Volvo's have such high safety standards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I don't think the expectation is that developing countries are gonna reverse-engineer the vaccine production processes from scratch; the hope is that waivers will help remove obstacles such as licensing requirements. In the short-to-medium term, this would help eg. India and its neighbouring countries start up production at more sites, which can then help supply the region with vaccines more effectively. Most of the requisite knowledge is already available in the region, as companies like AstraZeneca and J&J have already started up production in India, partnering with proven local biotech firms; retasking other plants in the region to produce finished vaccine product is about as feasible as it is to do so in eg. Europe, and it will be useful to do so even if it takes several more months to get production rolling—because these extremely populous regions will need to keep producing and administering vaccines at breakneck speed at least for the remainder of the year, and probably well into 2022, even after the global pandemic is determined to be over. In the medium-to-long term, the same freedom from licensing requirements would help these countries respond more swiftly to future outbreaks, forestalling future disasters driven by new variants. Wiggins's company and their product line are a very different matter, for a large number of reasons.

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Licensing requirements are a very minor matter in this - and should also not be done away with, for quality reasons alone.

You really do not want people pushing out vaccines who should not be trusted to be capable to do so.

Just look at the latest Sputnik debacle for an example where Brazil found replicating vector viruses - do you want something similar to that happen on a larger basis? Keep in mind that any incident would massively erode trust in vaccines who'd otherwise be considered rather safe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

Licensing requirements are a very minor matter in this - and should also not be done away with, for quality reasons alone.

You really do not want people pushing out vaccines who should not be trusted to be capable to do so.

Just look at the latest Sputnik debacle for an example where Brazil found replicating vector viruses - do you want something similar to that happen on a larger basis? Keep in mind that any incident would massively erode trust in vaccines who'd otherwise be considered rather safe.

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That is primarily a regulatory issue, not a commercial licensing issue. Plants would still have to be authorized by regulators, and the products would still have to pass appropriate quality control. The furore surrounding the reports of replicating viruses in the second dose of Sputnik concerns product imported from outside Brazil, and the take-home message there is that the Brazilian regulator detected the problems in question—and responded by blocking the import of that vaccine product.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

Licensing requirements are a very minor matter in this - and should also not be done away with, for quality reasons alone.

You really do not want people pushing out vaccines who should not be trusted to be capable to do so.

Just look at the latest Sputnik debacle for an example where Brazil found replicating vector viruses - do you want something similar to that happen on a larger basis? Keep in mind that any incident would massively erode trust in vaccines who'd otherwise be considered rather safe.

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I want to qualify your assertion here a bit. In principle there is no reason why licensing or IP waivers should directly affect the quality of an off-brand vaccine; in theory this has nothing to do with licensing and is controlled by the relevant regulatory body. Of course, it is likely that in the absence of explicit tech transfer there would be a lot of time wasted figuring out how to make it at high yield and meeting appropriate quality standards, which is also independent of an IP waiver.

There is a reasonable concern that quality may become an issue if vaccines are produced without tech transfer in some countries just for domestic use, and thus are not subject to appropriate controls by regulatory agencies with sufficient expertise and resources to properly evaluate safety and efficacy. There's also a risk of clinical trials of a 'me too' generic not being as robust or well controlled as those by many of the first line manufacturers (though, to be fair, AZN's trial was a bit of a mess). But I think it's critical to separate these issues from the IP waiver issue.

Temporary IP waivers for Covid vaccines/treatments/diagnostics on their own don't really hurt the pharma companies or the broader global IP regime that provides incentives for innovation. On the other hand, they also don't really help get more vaccine produced in anything resembling a timely manner; this is one limiting factor but not the major one. It's a nice move but one that's largely a side show to the real issues.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aimless

That is primarily a regulatory issue, not a commercial licensing issue. Plants would still have to be authorized by regulators, and the products would still have to pass appropriate quality control. The furore surrounding the reports of replicating viruses in the second dose of Sputnik concerns product imported from outside Brazil, and the take-home message there is that the Brazilian regulator detected the problems in question—and responded by blocking the import of that vaccine product.

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It's a complete non-issue right from the start as BioNTech, for example, also already reduced or waived their license fees. It's political grandstanding - costs them nothing, makes them look good but has no actual effect whatsoever.

It's also hypocritical as the US was one of the countries which blocked all vaccine exports. Even those they don't use themselves.