2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2638535 19-Jan-2021 23:14

Looks like the Australians are a little slower than our labs to do Genomic breakdown and serology tests for age of infection?.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/two-players-test-positive-to-covid-19-in-australian-open-quarantine-20210119-p56vbv.html

Lot of the results being re-classified while these 'influencers' are racking up the views and attention ~~bagging how hard their life is when no-one is dropping at their feet to every demand~~ explaining how terrible living in a hotel and keeping a country relatively clean (compared to their own origins) remains that way, is

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#2638551 20-Jan-2021 07:16

Scott3:

Have been doing a little looking at vaccine cost.

Apparently Israel is paying an average of US$47 per person (US$23.5/dose) for the Pfizer, and moderna vaccines in an early access agreement. (Deal also requires them to share lots of data)

US is paying pfizer US$19.5/dose, and moderna US$18/dpose

EU-27 bloc pfizer is paying $14.76/dose, and moderna US$15/dose.

"The BBC reported a day earlier that Pfizer was marketing its vaccines to countries at a price range of $10.65 to $21 per dose, while Moderna’s range was $25 to $37 per dose."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-be-paying-average-of-47-per-person-for-pfizer-moderna-vaccines/

Frankly all the numbers seem easily affordable for first world countries. pfizier vaccines for 4m people (no body has approved it for under 16's yet) at Israels price would ruin at NZ$280m. Note this is just the cost for the vaccines. Also need to distribute and put it in peoples arms. For comparison the cost of the second lockdown (Auckland level 30 was said to be NZ$440m/week).

Seems good value in that light, other than the ethics of outbidding poorer hard covid-19 hit nations.

Commentators on the above story note that Canada placed their Pfizer order prior to Israel, but Israel is having it delivered first. Obviously either the money of the early access data has allowed them to jump the queue.

Why isn't NZ being Israel right now? A small(ish) country that could have been the first in the world to be fully vaccinated. Do our problems stem from wanting to pay a fraction of those costs for our vaccines and putting too much faith in lower cost vaccines such as the UQ one?

Did we totally miss the boat because we weren't willing to actually pay good money to be front of the queue despite Chris Hipkins telling us in November that we would be?

I'm at least glad our Government doesn't take advice from Siouxsie Wiles.

kingdragonfly

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#2638562 20-Jan-2021 07:39

Dratsab:No mistake. A deliberate attempt at misinformation carried out by some extremely inept people.

Conspirators give the evil World Order cabal too much credit.

To make something that sends/receive any sort of signal, and fit through a hypodermic needle.

The biggest needle hole is 0.4 mm, which is comically large.

The average human eyes can see objects approximately 0.1 mm in size

The wavelength of 5G is 1.0 to 10.0 mm. In English, an effective antenna that may fit through a needle hole, if it were extremely skinny, and by chance oriented correctly, but you'd definitely see it.

You'd have to make billions of nanomachines. The best we got at this scale is a drill. It would bankrupt any government in the world to produce these at scale.

wellygary

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#2638586 20-Jan-2021 09:07

sbiddle:

Why isn't NZ being Israel right now? A small(ish) country that could have been the first in the world to be fully vaccinated. Do our problems stem from wanting to pay a fraction of those costs for our vaccines and putting too much faith in lower cost vaccines such as the UQ one?

Did we totally miss the boat because we weren't willing to actually pay good money to be front of the queue despite Chris Hipkins telling us in November that we would be?

I'm at least glad our Government doesn't take advice from Siouxsie Wiles.

Probably because there is not a lot of data to be gained from immunising a population against a disease that is not circulating in the community??

Israel is still averaging 8000+ new cases a day ( in a population of 9 million) although it looks like it might have just started to slow...

But it certainly provides a much richer dataset for a drug company than immunising 5 million kiwis sitting behind a 1000 mile moat....

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#2638604 20-Jan-2021 09:49

New Atlas: COVID-19 pandemic triggers largest drop in US life expectancy in decades

...The latest projections for 2020, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calculate a single-year drop in US life expectancy of 1.13 years, down to 77.48 years. The researchers hypothesize this could be a beginning of a pandemic-influenced decline in US life expectancy spanning several years, greater than anything seen since the 1918 influenza pandemic.

“… a rapid return to pre−COVID-19 life expectancy is unlikely, due to the anticipated continued presence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, long-term detrimental health impacts for those who recovered from the virus, deaths from other health conditions that were precipitated by COVID-19, and social and economic losses resulting from the pandemic,” the researchers write in the new study.

Looking at minority communities the life expectancy declines from 2020 are even more unsettling. Black communities are predicted to lose 2.10 years in life expectancy (down to 72.78 years) and Latino life expectancy will drop a startling 3.05 years (down to 78.77 years).
...

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#2639083 20-Jan-2021 16:35

wellygary:

sbiddle:

Why isn't NZ being Israel right now? A small(ish) country that could have been the first in the world to be fully vaccinated. Do our problems stem from wanting to pay a fraction of those costs for our vaccines and putting too much faith in lower cost vaccines such as the UQ one?

Did we totally miss the boat because we weren't willing to actually pay good money to be front of the queue despite Chris Hipkins telling us in November that we would be?

I'm at least glad our Government doesn't take advice from Siouxsie Wiles.

Probably because there is not a lot of data to be gained from immunising a population against a disease that is not circulating in the community??

Israel is still averaging 8000+ new cases a day ( in a population of 9 million) although it looks like it might have just started to slow...

But it certainly provides a much richer dataset for a drug company than immunising 5 million kiwis sitting behind a 1000 mile moat....

There is a lot that could potentially be learnt vaccinating a country where there has been very few cases of Covid vs somewhere that has had rampant spread. I'd argue both are just as important as each other.

We can compare vaccine responses on those who haven't had Covid vs those who have had it, as well as antibody and T cell responses across random samples in our country where we know there is a 99.95% chance that the person has never had Covid and compare these to people who have had the virus.

Long term this has a lot of value because it's also going to help us establish how long the vaccine is ultimately going to protect us and whether we see significantly differences in protection long term in those who have had Covid vs those that have not had it. A country like NZ is the perfect place to be able to establish a base figure for this for those who have not had it before being vaccinated.

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#2639087 20-Jan-2021 16:42

sbiddle:

Scott3:

Have been doing a little looking at vaccine cost.

Apparently Israel is paying an average of US$47 per person (US$23.5/dose) for the Pfizer, and moderna vaccines in an early access agreement. (Deal also requires them to share lots of data)

US is paying pfizer US$19.5/dose, and moderna US$18/dpose

EU-27 bloc pfizer is paying $14.76/dose, and moderna US$15/dose.

"The BBC reported a day earlier that Pfizer was marketing its vaccines to countries at a price range of $10.65 to $21 per dose, while Moderna’s range was $25 to $37 per dose."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-be-paying-average-of-47-per-person-for-pfizer-moderna-vaccines/

Frankly all the numbers seem easily affordable for first world countries. pfizier vaccines for 4m people (no body has approved it for under 16's yet) at Israels price would ruin at NZ$280m. Note this is just the cost for the vaccines. Also need to distribute and put it in peoples arms. For comparison the cost of the second lockdown (Auckland level 30 was said to be NZ$440m/week).

Seems good value in that light, other than the ethics of outbidding poorer hard covid-19 hit nations.

Commentators on the above story note that Canada placed their Pfizer order prior to Israel, but Israel is having it delivered first. Obviously either the money of the early access data has allowed them to jump the queue.

Why isn't NZ being Israel right now? A small(ish) country that could have been the first in the world to be fully vaccinated. Do our problems stem from wanting to pay a fraction of those costs for our vaccines and putting too much faith in lower cost vaccines such as the UQ one?

Did we totally miss the boat because we weren't willing to actually pay good money to be front of the queue despite Chris Hipkins telling us in November that we would be?

I'm at least glad our Government doesn't take advice from Siouxsie Wiles.

Biggest issue is that Israel, US, UK etc. Have been able to justify emergency authorizations of vaccines. In short, they are willing to carry extra risk by allowing use of a vaccine that has not gone through the normal approval process, in a gable that any harm caused by emergency use of vaccine will be outweighed by the benefits it provides in a covid-19 ravaged community. NZ is not covid-19 ravaged, so we are going to follow normal approval processes. This means we will start later than places like Israil with our vaccinations, and are unlikely to catch up.

I think wellygary is on to it. While Israel is paying a premium for the vaccine compared to the US and EU, the premium (US$23.5/dose vs the US$19.5/dose that the USA is paying) doesn't seem sufficient to just buy Early access to the vaccine, and to jump countries like Canada in the queue.

As such I think the data that Israel is sending back is the appeal of the early access program. My understanding is it is a lot of data. So much that there are serious concerned about privacy etc. It is likely that a location with rampant covid-19 is required to collect real world effectiveness data, something NZ cannot offer.

Given NZ ordered enough vaccines for triple our population (no idea what cancellation terms are like, but I assume they are not free cancellation), it doesn't seem like we are shy about spending money on this.

That said, vaccine doses will be worth far more to pretty much any other (comparatively wealthy) country as NZ. Not sure getting into a bidding war with other wealthy OECD and gulf nations is a good outcome.

Should also vaccines becoming available later might be better than the ones that have already completed stage 3 trials. The single-dose Janssen one should complete stage 3 trials before the end of the month. 90% + efficacy is expected based on data to date. Being a single does vaccine and not requiring ultra-cold storage would significantly ease the cost and logistical challenges of the roll out, and would avoid issues stemming from an inevitable chunk of the population that have the first dose, but not the second of a 2 dose course.

Lastly, at the moment vaccine availability will be production limited. NZ getting say 5m people worth of say the Pfizer vaccine in 3 weeks time would directly drag that volume of vaccine away from Covid hotspots like the UK, USA, and the science experiment in Israil. Ethically this wouldn't be great. Diplomatically it would be a bad look for NZ to be outbidding the rest of the world that objectively need the vaccine far more. Also would be a bad look for the vaccine makers for valuing money of human lives.

I think our slow vaccination timetable stems from a combination of wanting to save a few dollars, wanting to use the normal approval process (to avoid carrying undue risk), wanting to cherry-pick the best vaccine from our orders, and not wanting to be seen to bidding up the price of vaccines excessively to the determent of poor countries.

We are one of the few countries in the world that can afford to be fairly chill with our vaccination timeline. That said, it would be nice if we could have a decent chunk (say 30%+) of the population with their vaccine course complete before we enter our typical respiratory illness season in winter. An outbreak of a new more contagious strain in a non vaccinated population in the depths of winter would suck.

Will be interesting to see what happens with the flu jab this year. Given we have just about eliminated the flu, and the resources to deliver it (needles etc) could overlap with what is needed for covid-19 vaccine production, would it be worth NZ skipping a year? Or do we want to just keep everything flowing as normal?

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tdgeek

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#2639166 20-Jan-2021 19:15

Scott3:

Will be interesting to see what happens with the flu jab this year. Given we have just about eliminated the flu, and the resources to deliver it (needles etc) could overlap with what is needed for covid-19 vaccine production, would it be worth NZ skipping a year? Or do we want to just keep everything flowing as normal?

Could we give a flu jab when we give a Covid jab? It will be heading towards winter, a lesser cost as one trip, I;d be happy to have a higher fee so as not to reduce doctor revenue. Covid has caused the flu to be hit hard, lets do a foot on the throat of it. Although I guess it will still floe here from overseas? In any case, it would help the health sector

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#2639175 20-Jan-2021 19:26

The downside to this big push before we even get in line..

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/nyregion/vaccine-supply.html

Scott3

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#2639201 20-Jan-2021 20:14

tdgeek:

Could we give a flu jab when we give a Covid jab? It will be heading towards winter, a lesser cost as one trip, I;d be happy to have a higher fee so as not to reduce doctor revenue. Covid has caused the flu to be hit hard, lets do a foot on the throat of it. Although I guess it will still floe here from overseas? In any case, it would help the health sector

"Uncertainty remains over whether the two vaccines can be administered concurrently"

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/covid-immunisation-schedule-may-complicate-flu-jab

Re putting out foot on the throat of influenza, Not a single case was detected in NZ between June and Sept 2020. I don't have more recent data, but there seems to be a good chance we have eliminated influenza from the community. Given the isolation rules it seem's it is unlikely it gets back in (although we are not testing for it like we are covid-19).

Possibly we would want to continue as normal, just in case we open the border in say Jan 2022, to give cover to risk populations between now and April/June 2022 when they get the next jab.

tdgeek

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#2639205 20-Jan-2021 20:23

Scott3:

"Uncertainty remains over whether the two vaccines can be administered concurrently"

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/covid-immunisation-schedule-may-complicate-flu-jab

Re putting out foot on the throat of influenza, Not a single case was detected in NZ between June and Sept 2020. I don't have more recent data, but there seems to be a good chance we have eliminated influenza from the community. Given the isolation rules it seem's it is unlikely it gets back in (although we are not testing for it like we are covid-19).

Possibly we would want to continue as normal, just in case we open the border in say Jan 2022, to give cover to risk populations between that April to June 2022 when they get the next jab.

Thanks for that info

kingdragonfly

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#2639229 20-Jan-2021 22:21

A Song for Anti-Vaxxers

Flo & Joan

Geektastic

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#2639232 20-Jan-2021 22:28

Can we cancel our vaccine orders if Medsafe do not approve a particular vaccine?

Scott3

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#2639254 20-Jan-2021 22:47

Geektastic:

Can we cancel our vaccine orders if Medsafe do not approve a particular vaccine?

I assume the orders would be subject to vaccines being proven safe and effective (likely with a percentage threshold written into the contract).

But I don't think the NZ government could hide behind medsafe failing to approve a particular vaccine to get out of paying, unless clear safety reasons could be identified for the non-approval.

Of course just speculating.

Geektastic

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#2639297 21-Jan-2021 00:13

Surely they wouldn’t risk tens of millions of dollars on something that they might be legally unable to use?!

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