Covid-19 pandemic

[Patrick Thistle]

Richard Walker, MD of Iceland supermarkets has been quoted on the BBC a lot since saying this yesterday

It is now only the unvaccinated at serious risk of harm and hospitalisation. I think we need to design policies that are fit for business and society, and those who are vaccinated as opposed to the unvaccinated tail wagging the triple jabbed dog."

Feels like a lot of people sort of agree with that.

[Uncle Ethan]

Many might. Instinctively I do. However, disproportionate numbers of less well-off people and minorities haven't had boosters; then there's kids. There's a temptation to see the unvaccinated as anti-vaxers who deserve their fate. I'm not sure it is as simple as that.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

then there's kids.

Too damn right. As the father of an 11 year old, who being 11 has had no opportunity from our shower of a government to get even a single jab, and who is no doubt doomed to pick this thing up as she returns to school today (Year 6), I am seriously unhappy about the treatment of kids in the UK.

[Wouter D]

Too damn right. As the father of an 11 year old, who being 11 has had no opportunity from our shower of a government to get even a single jab, and who is no doubt doomed to pick this thing up as she returns to school today (Year 6), I am seriously unhappy about the treatment of kids in the UK.

This person drove from Maidstone to Milan in agreement with you. Obviously not an option for everybody, but good for her and her daughter.

[Patrick Thistle]

Yeah I saw that story. Completely agree the way kids have been treated is a shambles. Mainly because of some antivax opinions on a relevant committee.

[S. aureus]

And as there are 2 million cases of coronavirus in the country already, does testing everyone who comes in have any merit. It's not going to prevent transmission any more.

This assumes that air passenger testing in the UK has more to do with preventing covid transmission than it does with, say, shuffling cash to the government's friends and donors.

[S. aureus]

Too damn right. As the father of an 11 year old, who being 11 has had no opportunity from our shower of a government to get even a single jab, and who is no doubt doomed to pick this thing up as she returns to school today (Year 6), I am seriously unhappy about the treatment of kids in the UK.

I can't imagine how much more stressful this whole pandemic has been to someone with kids in the UK.

[hobbes]

Got to admit, weeks of home schooling while working full time was pretty tough. For him mainly. As is the Russian roulette over when (not if) they're going to bring it home. It doesn't matter how careful we are avoiding covid, my 8 year old is in a bubble with 50 other kids (and by extension their families.) Ironically, he eventually got it in the summer holidays.
Luckily it was very mild and the worst thing is he now can't eat fruit flavoured sweets or strawberry ice cream as it tastes bad even 6 months later. But bringing it home and not being able to isolate such a young one meant that I (considered high risk) just had to run the gauntlet.
If the govt wanted to avoid mass infection, they'd have jabbed kids 5 and over last term when they did the flu vax. But they don't, obviously. They want herd immunity.

[Fussbudget]

This person drove from Maidstone to Milan in agreement with you.

Rochelle, Rochelle early draft "needs some work"

[Hot Pepsi]

As I mentioned a couple of pages back, very much not the experience of Latin American governments who've dealt with Pfizer during this pandemic (and a fair number of Latin American governments have very good records, by this stage, of getting their own populations vaccinated).

Well, you cut off the other part of my point, which is that their primary concern is that they don't want to undercut their own sales. It's not because they think these poorer countries are just holding out on them and will pay if they shake them down hard enough.

I suppose the experience in eastern Europe and Argentina might be different because those may count as "middle class" countries insofar as they think they can get those governments to pay more. And there are various distribution and production issues as noted above.

My point is that the marginal cost of each pill or shot is vanishingly small, so they're happy to get whatever price they can for each one and give some away if it helps their image. But it wouldn't surprise me that they they'd let people die before leaving that last dime on the table. And, ideally, they'll get the US government to cover their costs for donating drugs overseas. Pfizer for example is donating hundreds of millions of vaccine doses through a deal with the US government.

One of the big political - well, it used to be big - issues in the US is that a lot of people think the key to making drugs cheaper in the US is to just let people import them from Canada. But that's not a solution. That's just arbitrage. Drugs aren't magically cheaper if they come from Canada.

Drugs are cheaper in Canada (and Europe or Japan or Australia or Mexico, etc) because those governments have squeezed the drug companies on the price. So the US market is cross-subsidizing drugs (and devices) in other countries to some extent. But more importantly, if we just opened the floodgates to reimporting drugs, the drug companies wouldn't offer such low prices in those countries.

That raises the question of why the US payers can't negotiate better prices for people here. Part of that is just politics and the pharma lobby, of course, but part of it is this obsession with "choice." The Veterans Administration, for example, does negotiate lower prices on drugs for its members, but to do that it has to be willing to walk away from the table, and that means it doesn't offer all of the drugs that other insurers or Medicare Part D plans will. A lot is made out of why Medicare can't negotiate drug prices for beneficiaries, but even if Congress told them they could, they really couldn't because Medicare isn't set up like that. Part D isn't really run directly by CMS. It's a bunch of separate individual plans that negotiate deals separately to preserve "choice" as well as pharma revenues. It's all designed to make sure the private sector gets to wet its beak on every public health expense.

[Hot Pepsi]

Richard Walker, MD of Iceland supermarkets has been quoted on the BBC a lot since saying this yesterday



Feels like a lot of people sort of agree with that.

I could agree with him if he said that kids are lower risk and therefore a lower priority if vaccines are limited. Pre-omicron, at least, there was some data - can't find it now - suggesting that boosters didn't help much in some groups of younger people because they were so well-protected by two shots already.

But that was pre-omicron, I think, and that was about boosters not the first two jabs.

And it seems that withholding vaccines from kids isn't going to do much to get more adults, in the rich world or developing world, the vaccine. Vaccines are not like the t-shirts made up for the team that loses the Super Bowl. We can't just pack them up and ship them to the Congo.

[Sam]

Well, you cut off the other part of my point, which is that their primary concern is that they don't want to undercut their own sales. It's not because they think these poorer countries are just holding out on them and will pay if they shake them down hard enough.

I suppose the experience in eastern Europe and Argentina might be different because those may count as "middle class" countries insofar as they think they can get those governments to pay more. And there are various distribution and production issues as noted above.

I didn't deliberately cut anything out, so apologies for eliding that point – I was replying to that specific statement and personally find quote posts easier to follow if they quote just the part they're replying to (I've done the same in this one, obviously).

To the other bit ... anyone who sincerely believes the Argentine government can pay them more for something that's not priced in Argentine pesos shouldn't be in a position to be selling large quantities of things to the Argentine government. Especially Americans, given that American vulture funds have played a large part in Argentina still having almost no foreign currency reserves over two decades after the default. I realise Pfizer aren't a vulture fund, but if they really think (which they don't) that they can squeeze Argentina in particular (and other Latin American governments that aren't Brazil more generally) on price, they really haven't done their homework.

[Hot Pepsi]

Anyone who sincerely believes the Argentine government can pay them more for something that's not priced in Argentine pesos shouldn't be in a position to be selling large quantities of things to the Argentine government.

That makes sense.

[Janik]

Richard Walker, MD of Iceland supermarkets has been quoted on the BBC a lot since saying this yesterday

It is now only the unvaccinated at serious risk of harm and hospitalisation. I think we need to design policies that are fit for business and society, and those who are vaccinated as opposed to the unvaccinated tail wagging the triple jabbed dog."

Feels like a lot of people sort of agree with that.

It is an instinctive reaction. But if people are thinking like that (and I am in no sense trying to imply Patrick Thistle does so) they haven't thought it through. Because for this to work it means denying unvaccinated people access to hospitals to keep these from being overwhelmed, especially with staff shortages.

The other thing Mr Walker and others haven't thought through is that even if we design policies 'fit for society', which really means treating this like a mild disease where asymptomatic people don't isolate, it just can't work for hospital staff. A high proportion of non-COVID hospital patients will be clinically vulnerable. So cutting the isolation period of hospital staff (medical or support), which is sure to be suggested as a solution to the current situation, driven as it is by staff being absent rather than patient numbers, is potentially leathal. The sector we need to get back to work the most is the one we must be the most cautious over. So the situation will persist until overall infection numbers come down again. Which means policies that are fit for society are directly contradictory to those fit for business. Still an either/or.

[Patrick Thistle]

It is an instinctive reaction. But if people are thinking like that (and I am in no sense trying to imply Patrick Thistle does so) they haven't thought it through. Because for this to work it means denying unvaccinated people access to hospitals to keep these from being overwhelmed, especially with staff shortages.

Well... it depends on the reason they aren't vaccinated. But, personally, I vacillate between the moral good of caring for everyone and thinking that sometimes people make bad choices and there are consequences.

The other thing Mr Walker and others haven't thought through is that even if we design policies 'fit for society', which really means treating this like a mild disease where asymptomatic people don't isolate, it just can't work for hospital staff. A high proportion of non-COVID hospital patients will be clinically vulnerable. So cutting the isolation period of hospital staff (medical or support), which is sure to be suggested as a solution to the current situation, driven as it is by staff being absent rather than patient numbers, is potentially leathal. The sector we need to get back to work the most is the one we must be the most cautious over. So the situation will persist until overall infection numbers come down again. Which means policies that are fit for society are directly contradictory to those fit for business. Still an either/or.

We can differentiate between sectors. But there are obvious risks in cutting isolation periods for shop staff too. Clinically vulnerable people go shopping for food as well.

[Incandenza]

Too damn right. As the father of an 11 year old, who being 11 has had no opportunity from our shower of a government to get even a single jab, and who is no doubt doomed to pick this thing up as she returns to school today (Year 6), I am seriously unhappy about the treatment of kids in the UK.

What the hell? I had no idea about that.

[Lang Spoon]

Same here In Ireland, schools open tomorrow but they won't start vaccinating 5-11 year olds for at least a week.

[Sam]

I'm surprised to hear that too. Argentina started vaccinating 3+ year olds in October or November, I think, and I knew the UK wasn't doing at that point but thought they'd started some time in November or December.

[Tony C]

On the BBC news at ten report from a vaccination centre in Rome:

”Madam, why did you have your son vaccinated?”

”Because I love him.”

[Patrick Thistle]

A four months old baby from Tonyrefail has been hospitalised after becoming extremely ill with covid.

Every time people say it's very, very low numbers of kids who get sick, I think, "yeah, but if it happens to you it matters".

[Incandenza]

From an interview with Carl Zimmer (don't know why the boxes appeared when I pasted):

https://messaging-custom-newsletters...ff1116a72635fc

How are you personally feeling about the state of the pandemic in the U.S.?

It’s striking that we are not better able to deal with a new surge two years into the pandemic. Scientists have been warning that this virus, like all viruses, would mutate, so we needed to be ready for change. We had Alpha and then we had Delta, so we’ve been through this before. And yet, in the U.S., we’re in this latest surge without a strong testing capacity to deal with it, without a system to get people good masks, which we know can help. And so there’s just chaos.

The Biden administration is now saying it’s going to give out 500 million tests. Those tests aren’t going to be coming in for at least a couple of more weeks — deep into this surge. And it’s not enough. It’s basically like waiting until half the house is burned down before you send in the firefighters — and you send one small fire engine.

What do you see for the U.S.?

We are going to go through a big surge. We’re going to go through a surge of cases over the next month, maybe more. We don’t know how much hospitalization that’s going to lead to, but it’s going to be a lot. And then it’s going to go down just like it’s gone down in the past.

[S. aureus]

The testing center near me now has a sign up saying that it's closed until January 10th.

First day of term for my kids, my son reports that there were 146 kids absent today from his ~800 student school (though obviously I don't know the reasons).

A friend's husband has symptoms (mild), but his boss won't let him not go to work unless he tests positive. He hasn't been able to find a test (either type) the last couple of days, so he was at work today.

[Incandenza]

Florida gov. Ron Desantis appeared in public today for the first time since December. He had a lot of difficulty getting through his prepared remarks.

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1478834609236238338

[hobbes]

I'm surprised to hear that too. Argentina started vaccinating 3+ year olds in October or November, I think, and I knew the UK wasn't doing at that point but thought they'd started some time in November or December.

Nope. Age12 and over only.

[caja-dglh]

PCR tests around Chicago currently have a 7-day turnaround for results. Which is... well, all rather pointless really.