8 ms·

It's interesting there wasn't direct economic injection from governments. Both the humanitarian and economic toll of COVID is off the charts. 20% contraction i

by jariel 6y ago

It's interesting there wasn't direct economic injection from governments. Both the humanitarian and economic toll of COVID is off the charts. 20% contraction in the economy, is like 4 Trillion in GDP loss for the US alone, maybe 20 Trillion for the world. And that's just the money, not the human loss. Given that, I don't get why nations didn't give them basically blank cheques, enabled the socialization/commandeering of factories and equipment, 5-10% of the Armed Forces for whatever needs etc.. Literally every drug company can 'report their assets' to the COVID task force and they will get deployed as needed. The companies will be happy to do that because they'll earn 3-10x return on those assets otherwise anyhow. That seems a little dramatic but it's basically nothing compared to the damage COVID is causing. Also: they didn't go into the actual manufacturing details to much, sadly. Edit: also interesting would be the sunk cost / opportunity cost calculation on ramping up production of untested vaccines. If opportunity cost didn't factor in i.e. if ramping up one vaccine didn't come at the cost of another, my bet is that it would have been worth any price. If the US had spent $2B on ramping up every vaccine candidate before they were approved, and only 1 out of 10 came through, costing $20B for the first massive batch and accelerating subsequent batches, instead of merely $2B - would it have been worth it? $200 a dose instead of $20 dose? The math would say it's way beyond worth it. There's a case for 'prepping' every single vaccine candidate to the extent it's possible and even starting to manufacture in quantities way ahead of time. This financial calculus doesn't work in the context of Pfizer - it doesn't make sense for them - however it absolutely does in the bigger picture. A 'remedy' for this could have been to offer Pfizer massively increased price per dose for earlier delivery, in which case it would have made sense for the to spend $20B instead of $2, or simply some kind of national 'blank cheque' intervention. The former concept is neat but would be hard to nail down, the later is probably more workable. Given that vaccine manufacture is 1/2 the equation, not just the R&D, I hope the 'after action reports' will put this in context.

culopatin 6y ago
If we didn’t waste so much time in dealing with politics and formal gossiping we’d would be living in the future.
gleb 6y ago
The article answers this. Because further government involvement would slow down the process. E.g. “To assemble its mRNA production network, Pfizer used its own money and didn’t take any from the federal government. Executives said they didn’t want to give agencies outside the FDA more leverage over the design of the trials.” “Rival Moderna, which took funding from a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, suffered a three-week delay in completing its own mRNA trial after federal officials there asked the company to slow down enrollment to boost the racial and ethnic diversity of study subjects.”
- scotty79 6y ago
  So basically the answer is that government is completely incapable to give money with no strings attached. There are always strings and they always slow things down.
  - lifeformed 6y ago
    Another way to interpret this is that when unrestrained, Pfizer cut some corners and insufficiently represented the test population. Of course, this all depends on the reasoning behind that request.
    - eloff 6y ago
      That's a completely unsubstantiated allegation.
      - throwaway2245 6y ago
        "Executives said they didn’t want to give agencies outside the FDA more leverage over the design of the trials" substantiates it, given that this was the leverage sought.
        eloff 6y ago
        No it does not. Your assuming that was the leverage sought. You're also assuming that's the primary reason for avoiding government interference when there are many reasons for that. The primary possibly being that bringing the government into it would slow things down. Finally you're assuming that they didn't have a diverse trial, and you're wrong about that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25408528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25408528
matz1 6y ago
The humanitarian and economic toll has nothing to do with virus itself but more of because of the government response to it. Namely the lockdown.
j0ba 6y ago
Random question: why are we saying, "the economic toll of covid," rather than, "the economic toll of the response to covid?" If the lockdowns hadn't happened, more would have died, but presumably the economy would be fine.
- zpeti 6y ago
  And interestingly in many places there were excess deaths in the first wave, but not the second. So it is a big question just how many more would have died.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    Even more interestingly, this is bullshit. (Unless you mean countries like New Zealand where the second wave just isn't happening) There is a lag between cases and death, and death and the publication of cumulative reports on all-cause mortality. If you happened to have read anything on the topic during the first wave, you'd know as much. Because it was repeated ad nauseam, until it became too ridiculous for even the most dedicated to keep on insisting that there were no excess deaths.
    - jariel 6y ago
      The case fatality rate was considerably lower in the second wave in almost all cases, and the total number of deaths generally lower as well. The 'lag' is accounted for in that most 'second wave' places have past the peak over their waves. Deaths were 'higher' in the second wave in places that had a small first wave, like Austria. But for places that had a 'real' first wave, the second wave was generally milder in terms of overall deaths, and much milder in terms of CFR. We can't ignore the real risk of 'waves' but it's also important not to deny the nuanced reality of them. In particular, the 'second wave' had many more younger people, probably accounting for the lower case fatality rate.
  - rimliu 6y ago
    We had few COVID deaths in the first wave and no excess deaths. Now we have lots of cases ~3000 daily, some 20-30 daily deaths but excess mortality is waaaay higher than COVID deaths. Most can ve explained by reduced accessibility to the medical services because of COVID precautions and general fear in public. Only now we start to feel pressure on the healthcare system caused directly by COVID cases.
redisman 6y ago
They were pretty smart about it. The guy leading project warp speed knew all the new vaccine platforms and funded 2 companies for each approach. I don’t think you could’ve gotten things much faster than this. Big pharma wants to cover their tail because a serious side effect would tarnish their - and vaccines reputation for decades and cause existential lawsuits. Moncef Slaoui is the guy in charge. He also mentions how they filter out candidates - for example ones needing an exotic ingredient that would make scaling manufacturing too hard. Check out his interview on Steven Levitts new podcast. It’s pretty incredible the mRNA vaccine candidate was created only a few days after China released the genetic data of the virus.
- scotty79 6y ago
  We pretty much have DNA/RNA printers that can make anything from data. And turning RNA into "mRNA vaccine" is just putting in in a little ball of fat (I think) which they know how to do because they worked on this technology for years.
- jariel 6y ago
  "I don’t think you could’ve gotten things much faster than this. " ??? It could have been done 5 months ago, by 5 different manufacturers. We could have had 50M doses in Oct, the rest by January. Why didn't Pfizer start ramping up? Because of the risk involved with an unproven candidate. That's literally in the article. It's 'financially crazy' for them to invest billions ramping up on an unproven vaccine. But only 'crazy' for them, not for us. This speaks to the dysfunction of markets in crisis situations. And why are we entrusting the manufacture of this essential IP to only one company? Pfizer? Because they paid for it? 'We' can 'pay for it' as well. And we can pay a lot more. If the government established royalty rates for a vaccine, thereby ensuring Pfizer gets a cut if the vaccine is a winner, and allows any manufacturer meeting regs to manufacture it, you'd 10x production. If the government basically 'pre-paid' or provided guaranteed credit for any manufacturer (up to standard) for any 'early candidate' vaccine, then not only would 10 manufacturers be involved - not just one - but they would have started 5 months ago. It would have been 'insanely' more expensive to do it this way, probably costing 10x as much. ... but it's actually not 'insane' is my point, it's extremely rational for us to put $200B on the table to accelerate this by 5 months. It's a bargain. It's a win-win-win - Pfizer frankly makes just as much profit (royalties have no underlying unit cost), manufacturers make some, Americans are safer and the economy starts earlier. We handled it 'poorly' because we didn't manage the situation, put in the right regs, or create the right incentives.
sho_hn 6y ago
> It's interesting there wasn't direct economic injection from governments. I didn't read the article, but I don't believe this is true. The vaccine is ultimately not Pfizer's but BioNTech's, and the German government gave them $445 million to develop it.
- jariel 6y ago
  We're talking about trials and manufacturing, not development of the vaccine itself. The former is R&D intensive, the later is op-ex expensive. The former relies on talent, the later is mostly just bodies and money. The former can be done much earlier in the process if the risk equations are aligned, which they are not, which is why Pfizer ramped up in October, and not back in April, when the could have, but wherein it wouldn't make sense for them.

by jariel 6y ago

culopatin 6y ago

If we didn’t waste so much time in dealing with politics and formal gossiping we’d would be living in the future.

gleb 6y ago

The article answers this. Because further government involvement would slow down the process. E.g. “To assemble its mRNA production network, Pfizer used its own money and didn’t take any from the federal government. Executives said they didn’t want to give agencies outside the FDA more leverage over the design of the trials.” “Rival Moderna, which took funding from a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, suffered a three-week delay in completing its own mRNA trial after federal officials there asked the company to slow down enrollment to boost the racial and ethnic diversity of study subjects.”

scotty79 6y ago
So basically the answer is that government is completely incapable to give money with no strings attached. There are always strings and they always slow things down.
- lifeformed 6y ago
  Another way to interpret this is that when unrestrained, Pfizer cut some corners and insufficiently represented the test population. Of course, this all depends on the reasoning behind that request.
  - eloff 6y ago
    That's a completely unsubstantiated allegation.
    - throwaway2245 6y ago
      "Executives said they didn’t want to give agencies outside the FDA more leverage over the design of the trials" substantiates it, given that this was the leverage sought.
      - eloff 6y ago
        No it does not. Your assuming that was the leverage sought. You're also assuming that's the primary reason for avoiding government interference when there are many reasons for that. The primary possibly being that bringing the government into it would slow things down. Finally you're assuming that they didn't have a diverse trial, and you're wrong about that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25408528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25408528

matz1 6y ago

The humanitarian and economic toll has nothing to do with virus itself but more of because of the government response to it. Namely the lockdown.

j0ba 6y ago

Random question: why are we saying, "the economic toll of covid," rather than, "the economic toll of the response to covid?" If the lockdowns hadn't happened, more would have died, but presumably the economy would be fine.

zpeti 6y ago
And interestingly in many places there were excess deaths in the first wave, but not the second. So it is a big question just how many more would have died.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  Even more interestingly, this is bullshit. (Unless you mean countries like New Zealand where the second wave just isn't happening) There is a lag between cases and death, and death and the publication of cumulative reports on all-cause mortality. If you happened to have read anything on the topic during the first wave, you'd know as much. Because it was repeated ad nauseam, until it became too ridiculous for even the most dedicated to keep on insisting that there were no excess deaths.
  - jariel 6y ago
    The case fatality rate was considerably lower in the second wave in almost all cases, and the total number of deaths generally lower as well. The 'lag' is accounted for in that most 'second wave' places have past the peak over their waves. Deaths were 'higher' in the second wave in places that had a small first wave, like Austria. But for places that had a 'real' first wave, the second wave was generally milder in terms of overall deaths, and much milder in terms of CFR. We can't ignore the real risk of 'waves' but it's also important not to deny the nuanced reality of them. In particular, the 'second wave' had many more younger people, probably accounting for the lower case fatality rate.
- rimliu 6y ago
  We had few COVID deaths in the first wave and no excess deaths. Now we have lots of cases ~3000 daily, some 20-30 daily deaths but excess mortality is waaaay higher than COVID deaths. Most can ve explained by reduced accessibility to the medical services because of COVID precautions and general fear in public. Only now we start to feel pressure on the healthcare system caused directly by COVID cases.

redisman 6y ago

They were pretty smart about it. The guy leading project warp speed knew all the new vaccine platforms and funded 2 companies for each approach. I don’t think you could’ve gotten things much faster than this. Big pharma wants to cover their tail because a serious side effect would tarnish their - and vaccines reputation for decades and cause existential lawsuits. Moncef Slaoui is the guy in charge. He also mentions how they filter out candidates - for example ones needing an exotic ingredient that would make scaling manufacturing too hard. Check out his interview on Steven Levitts new podcast. It’s pretty incredible the mRNA vaccine candidate was created only a few days after China released the genetic data of the virus.

scotty79 6y ago
We pretty much have DNA/RNA printers that can make anything from data. And turning RNA into "mRNA vaccine" is just putting in in a little ball of fat (I think) which they know how to do because they worked on this technology for years.
jariel 6y ago
"I don’t think you could’ve gotten things much faster than this. " ??? It could have been done 5 months ago, by 5 different manufacturers. We could have had 50M doses in Oct, the rest by January. Why didn't Pfizer start ramping up? Because of the risk involved with an unproven candidate. That's literally in the article. It's 'financially crazy' for them to invest billions ramping up on an unproven vaccine. But only 'crazy' for them, not for us. This speaks to the dysfunction of markets in crisis situations. And why are we entrusting the manufacture of this essential IP to only one company? Pfizer? Because they paid for it? 'We' can 'pay for it' as well. And we can pay a lot more. If the government established royalty rates for a vaccine, thereby ensuring Pfizer gets a cut if the vaccine is a winner, and allows any manufacturer meeting regs to manufacture it, you'd 10x production. If the government basically 'pre-paid' or provided guaranteed credit for any manufacturer (up to standard) for any 'early candidate' vaccine, then not only would 10 manufacturers be involved - not just one - but they would have started 5 months ago. It would have been 'insanely' more expensive to do it this way, probably costing 10x as much. ... but it's actually not 'insane' is my point, it's extremely rational for us to put $200B on the table to accelerate this by 5 months. It's a bargain. It's a win-win-win - Pfizer frankly makes just as much profit (royalties have no underlying unit cost), manufacturers make some, Americans are safer and the economy starts earlier. We handled it 'poorly' because we didn't manage the situation, put in the right regs, or create the right incentives.

sho_hn 6y ago

> It's interesting there wasn't direct economic injection from governments. I didn't read the article, but I don't believe this is true. The vaccine is ultimately not Pfizer's but BioNTech's, and the German government gave them $445 million to develop it.

jariel 6y ago
We're talking about trials and manufacturing, not development of the vaccine itself. The former is R&D intensive, the later is op-ex expensive. The former relies on talent, the later is mostly just bodies and money. The former can be done much earlier in the process if the risk equations are aligned, which they are not, which is why Pfizer ramped up in October, and not back in April, when the could have, but wherein it wouldn't make sense for them.