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Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 9:16 am
by shpalman
Australia to send Papua New Guinea vaccines as cases surge
Papua New Guinea, population 9 million, will get 8000 AstraZeneca doses.
Maybe it would have been more if Italy had let Australia, population 25.5 million, get those 250,000 doses which we blocked the export of them.
Officially, there are 1,400 active cases in the country, but the true number is thought to be much higher.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 9:26 am
by Chris Preston
Currently 50% of tests conducted at the main hospital in Port Moresby are coming back positive.
I think they have only approved the AstraZeneca vaccine as they would not have the facilities to deliver the Pfizer vaccine. They could certainly do with a lot more vaccines.
Australia has already changed its roll out strategy and is trying to vaccinate everyone in the Torres Strait Islands due to fear of spill over from PNG.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 11:41 am
by Bird on a Fire
This is the thing. The pandemic isn't over till it's over. There's no point vaccinating every last teenager in rich countries if we have hotspots elsewhere breeding new variants.
Given that manufacturers clearly can't meet the schedules they made up to win contracts, we need to rethink the global rollout of vaccines.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:01 pm
by shpalman
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 11:41 am
This is the thing. The pandemic isn't over till it's over. There's no point vaccinating every last teenager in rich countries if we have hotspots elsewhere breeding new variants.
Given that manufacturers clearly can't meet the schedules they made up to win contracts, we need to rethink the global rollout of vaccines.
That's true but in Europe we've barely vaccinated all the 80 year olds at this point.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:03 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Yes, which means there's plenty of time to come up with a more sensible strategy than all this unseemly squabbling and waving cash around.
It's a humanitarian crisis, not a bar in a crowded nightclub.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:49 pm
by shpalman
I don't know what a more sensible strategy would be, apart from make 10-100 times more doses and develop a few more vaccines in the meantime.
There's no point vaccinating teenagers at this point when over-80's aren't covered, since you don't know which teenager is going to be the superspreader but you do know that a high proportion of over-80's suffer badly and die from covid.
You don't know where the next variant is going to come from, I don't think it makes us any safer in the EU if the EU gives its doses away to the developing world instead of vaccinating its own population.
But then the death rate is much lower at age <40 so maybe once everyone >40 is done (might be ~July) we can see how things are and if there are hotspots around the world which we can help with.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 1:11 pm
by sTeamTraen
shpalman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:49 pm
I don't know what a more sensible strategy would be, apart from make 10-100 times more doses and develop a few more vaccines in the meantime.
Yes, a lot of the discussion comes down to people wanting everything to go faster, as if that isn't what everyone is already trying to do. And there don't even seem to be very many subtleties to it; the critical path is just how fast we can make the doses. I think that the EU should start exporting far more doses to other countries... once I've had mine. I suspect that building more factories won't help either, even if we could do it at Tesla-speed.
Humanity has a very ambiguous relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. On the one hand we all (pretty much literally, with the success of vaccination programmes in almost every country) gain about 15-20 years of life expectancy from them; on the other, they behave like the money-grabbing bastards we would expect someone to do when we depend on them to that extent. I'm not sure if there is an alternative, though.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 7:07 pm
by jdc
sTeamTraen wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 1:11 pm
shpalman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:49 pm
I don't know what a more sensible strategy would be, apart from make 10-100 times more doses and develop a few more vaccines in the meantime.
Yes, a lot of the discussion comes down to people wanting everything to go faster, as if that isn't what everyone is already trying to do. And there don't even seem to be very many subtleties to it; the critical path is just how fast we can make the doses. I think that the EU should start exporting far more doses to other countries... once I've had mine. I suspect that building more factories won't help either, even if we could do it at Tesla-speed.
Humanity has a very ambiguous relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. On the one hand we all (pretty much literally, with the success of vaccination programmes in almost every country) gain about 15-20 years of life expectancy from them; on the other, they behave like the money-grabbing bastards we would expect someone to do when we depend on them to that extent. I'm not sure if there is an alternative, though.
I don't know if more partnerships like this are possible:
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/aft ... production but Sanofi have agreed to produce 100m doses of Pfizer this year and 12m doses per month of J&J once that's authorised.
I'm guessing not every vaccine mfr will have the spare capacity to make similar deals with their competitors.
Re: Vaccine rollout in Papua New Guinea
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 7:56 pm
by Herainestold
sTeamTraen wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 1:11 pm
shpalman wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:49 pm
I don't know what a more sensible strategy would be, apart from make 10-100 times more doses and develop a few more vaccines in the meantime.
Yes, a lot of the discussion comes down to people wanting everything to go faster, as if that isn't what everyone is already trying to do. And there don't even seem to be very many subtleties to it; the critical path is just how fast we can make the doses. I think that the EU should start exporting far more doses to other countries... once I've had mine. I suspect that building more factories won't help either, even if we could do it at Tesla-speed.
Humanity has a very ambiguous relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. On the one hand we all (pretty much literally, with the success of vaccination programmes in almost every country) gain about 15-20 years of life expectancy from them; on the other, they behave like the money-grabbing bastards we would expect someone to do when we depend on them to that extent. I'm not sure if there is an alternative, though.
It is the profit motive that causes a life saving product to be directed to rich white countries. For every doses produced for a developed country anothert dose should be added to the COVAX pool. All available capacity should be directed to vaccine production.