5 ms·

sadly those extra days gained would do little to even put a dent in that figure.

by baskire 6y ago

xyzzyz 6y ago
Alas, UK managed to approve the same vaccine a week ago. A week of delay means extra 15-20 thousands of lives lost.
- bigyikes 6y ago
  Also the sooner a vaccine is released, the sooner you can dampen the exponential growth, potentially compounding the lives saved. Not sure how significant of an effect this might be, though.
  - addicted 6y ago
    We still don’t know if the vaccine prevents transmission. So that may not even be true.
    - bigyikes 6y ago
      I didn’t know that, thanks! I guess I need to learn more about how vaccines work. I thought that vaccine implied immunity which implied that transmission is prevented.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      We don’t have gold-standard proof that it prevents transmission, because studying that has not been a priory. There’s no reason to think that it doesn’t prevent transmission when you look at the mechanism involved. It would be very surprising.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  That's only true in a scenario where you specifically vaccinate exactly the people that were infected that week and later died.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    No, that’s wrong. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/the-simple-math-of-fda-delay.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/th...
- chub500 6y ago
  By that same logic why wait for any studies on the vaccine at all? Why not just start administering it as soon as it's developed (en masse)? The rigor is to give the public confidence that we're better off getting the vaccine than not.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    After the Phase 1 data was back, arguably it wouldn’t have been a bad call to give doses for free and gamble on the efficacy even if it turned out to be below 50%.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      From an ethical viewpoint, this is incredibly wrong, as vaccines given to healthy people which cause problems later are very very dangerous.
      - pashamur 6y ago
        > From an ethical viewpoint, this is incredibly wrong, as vaccines given to healthy people which cause problems later are very very dangerous. The first two phases are the safety tests, the third one is efficacy (so we knew the vaccine was "safe" after phase 2, we just didn't know the efficacy - that's what the poster above is alluding to).
  - henrikschroder 6y ago
    It's also the case that if you were to screw up on the first approval, if the first vaccine actually wasn't as safe as it needs to be, then most people will be scared of vaccine #2 or #3, regardless of their safety, regardless of how they were produced. And that would cause a huge setback and prolong all the stupidity for years, potentially.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    I hope that extra public confidence is worth hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from delaying the vaccine by months.
- mlyle 6y ago
  You get to the same number vaccinated by Jan 15th or whatever no matter what because we're production limited. If you managed to give 5 million doses a week earlier, you save about 200 lives (about 40 deaths per million per week).
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    We already had millions of doses in April/May. > If you managed to give 5 million doses a week earlier, you save about 200 lives (about 40 deaths per million per week). No, that’s wrong. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/the-simple-math-of-fda-delay.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/th...
    - mlyle 6y ago
      > We already had millions of doses in April/May. No we didn't. :P The US has 6.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine now. Projections of up to 50M delivered worldwide by the end of the year. We're on a crazy ramp. If you want to complain about a misallocation, a key complaint would be that they're holding slightly more than half the doses back to ensure everyone dosed can get a second dose... but with rolling production such a large holdback isn't necessary. > What could matter is if delay increases the speed at which you can ramp up. All the jurisdictions I know will blow through the entire supply of existing doses allocated to them very quickly. It doesn't go on a slow distribution ramp gated by approval like your ridiculous source suggests. What governs the ramp is production rates, which have been running flat-out irrespective of this decision.
      - xyzzyz 6y ago
        > All the jurisdictions I know will blow through the entire supply of existing doses allocated to them very quickly. It doesn't go on a slow distribution ramp gated by approval like your ridiculous source suggests. You misunderstand. "Blowing through entire supply" and being left with nothing is exactly the "slow distribution" Alex Tabarrok, a professor at GMU, talks about in the link I gave. He contrasts it with vaccinating entire population on day 1. Read it carefully. > What governs the ramp is production rates, which have been running flat-out irrespective of this decision. I consider the vaccine production regulation people to be just as incapable at cost-benefit analysis as vaccine approval people, so I assume that most production constraints are just as artificial as the approval constraints.

sadly those extra days gained would do little to even put a dent in that figure.

xyzzyz 6y ago

Alas, UK managed to approve the same vaccine a week ago. A week of delay means extra 15-20 thousands of lives lost.

bigyikes 6y ago
Also the sooner a vaccine is released, the sooner you can dampen the exponential growth, potentially compounding the lives saved. Not sure how significant of an effect this might be, though.
- addicted 6y ago
  We still don’t know if the vaccine prevents transmission. So that may not even be true.
  - bigyikes 6y ago
    I didn’t know that, thanks! I guess I need to learn more about how vaccines work. I thought that vaccine implied immunity which implied that transmission is prevented.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    We don’t have gold-standard proof that it prevents transmission, because studying that has not been a priory. There’s no reason to think that it doesn’t prevent transmission when you look at the mechanism involved. It would be very surprising.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
That's only true in a scenario where you specifically vaccinate exactly the people that were infected that week and later died.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  No, that’s wrong. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/the-simple-math-of-fda-delay.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/th...
chub500 6y ago
By that same logic why wait for any studies on the vaccine at all? Why not just start administering it as soon as it's developed (en masse)? The rigor is to give the public confidence that we're better off getting the vaccine than not.
- zaroth 6y ago
  After the Phase 1 data was back, arguably it wouldn’t have been a bad call to give doses for free and gamble on the efficacy even if it turned out to be below 50%.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    From an ethical viewpoint, this is incredibly wrong, as vaccines given to healthy people which cause problems later are very very dangerous.
    - pashamur 6y ago
      > From an ethical viewpoint, this is incredibly wrong, as vaccines given to healthy people which cause problems later are very very dangerous. The first two phases are the safety tests, the third one is efficacy (so we knew the vaccine was "safe" after phase 2, we just didn't know the efficacy - that's what the poster above is alluding to).
- henrikschroder 6y ago
  It's also the case that if you were to screw up on the first approval, if the first vaccine actually wasn't as safe as it needs to be, then most people will be scared of vaccine #2 or #3, regardless of their safety, regardless of how they were produced. And that would cause a huge setback and prolong all the stupidity for years, potentially.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  I hope that extra public confidence is worth hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from delaying the vaccine by months.
mlyle 6y ago
You get to the same number vaccinated by Jan 15th or whatever no matter what because we're production limited. If you managed to give 5 million doses a week earlier, you save about 200 lives (about 40 deaths per million per week).
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  We already had millions of doses in April/May. > If you managed to give 5 million doses a week earlier, you save about 200 lives (about 40 deaths per million per week). No, that’s wrong. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/the-simple-math-of-fda-delay.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/th...
  - mlyle 6y ago
    > We already had millions of doses in April/May. No we didn't. :P The US has 6.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine now. Projections of up to 50M delivered worldwide by the end of the year. We're on a crazy ramp. If you want to complain about a misallocation, a key complaint would be that they're holding slightly more than half the doses back to ensure everyone dosed can get a second dose... but with rolling production such a large holdback isn't necessary. > What could matter is if delay increases the speed at which you can ramp up. All the jurisdictions I know will blow through the entire supply of existing doses allocated to them very quickly. It doesn't go on a slow distribution ramp gated by approval like your ridiculous source suggests. What governs the ramp is production rates, which have been running flat-out irrespective of this decision.
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      > All the jurisdictions I know will blow through the entire supply of existing doses allocated to them very quickly. It doesn't go on a slow distribution ramp gated by approval like your ridiculous source suggests. You misunderstand. "Blowing through entire supply" and being left with nothing is exactly the "slow distribution" Alex Tabarrok, a professor at GMU, talks about in the link I gave. He contrasts it with vaccinating entire population on day 1. Read it carefully. > What governs the ramp is production rates, which have been running flat-out irrespective of this decision. I consider the vaccine production regulation people to be just as incapable at cost-benefit analysis as vaccine approval people, so I assume that most production constraints are just as artificial as the approval constraints.