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>to be fair ...taking a flyer on an utterly unproven vaccination strategy was a huge, huge risk and had it not come off there would be no vaccination strategy.

by harry8 6y ago

>to be fair ...taking a flyer on an utterly unproven vaccination strategy was a huge, huge risk and had it not come off there would be no vaccination strategy. Relying on being lucky doesn't seem like a "spot on" strategy to me. "We gambled everything on red it and came up so we deserve credit for the strategy." edit: This is in relation to the additional time between first and second jabs that was untested in the strategy - for which this result suggests we no longer need to be concerned that the vaccination might be reduced in protection as we were before this data came in.

chrisseaton 6y ago
When they do badly you say it's because of their incompetence. When they do well you still say it's because of their incompetence. At every turn they’ve had credible expert advice telling them to do contradictory things. They’ve had to use judgement. If only they had the sense to use hindsight, like you.
- harry8 6y ago
  The UK's has been a gambler's strategy, for mine, seat-of-the-pants I'm-feeling-lucky stuff. This "win" does not compensate the losses nor justify the strategy. The win here is "the decision outcome has not been smashed by a possible downside." There were rather a lot of people suggesting that doing an unproven vaccine strategy of getting the maximum number of people their first vaccine and a longer period between first and second that had not yet been trialed, at all as a thing that was risky. People said it in advance. Who were the credible experts who recommended it? What support did they give that it wasn't a pretty big risk? If there was some and I missed it I'll put my hand up and say I was wrong. As I recall there was some serious doubt about whether anyone would get benfit from vaccination at all. Again if it was /known/ that it was likely to work that's not a bad decision - but I haven't seen that analysis. Have you? Please do link it if you have. I'm also not clear about what the upside for running that risk was. Are there better results for people contracting covid after only one jab? Do we have data? Or was that a flyer that it might turn out to be? Any links you have with an analysis of that is welcome. The "herd immunity" strategy was also described as risky by most experts that I saw. I think the word I used when looking at it, in advance of the numbers coming in was "insane," while being well aware there was at least a nonzero chance it could work better than the conservative approach. To say it has not come off is an understatement. If it did come off somehow due to dumb luck it would have been equally terrible decision making. It's too big a risk to take, the downside is immense. It is reasonable to criticise a risk-loving gambling strategy for a nation's health whether it comes off or not. I criticisised it before and after and I criticisise it when it comes off and when it doesn't. By contrast a considered and careful strategy is to be commended even if it turned out to be incorrect based on subsequently available facts. This is literally gambling on uncertain outcomes with people's lives and health. You want to do that as sensibly as you can. You want the analysis. You want it public. You're paying the downside. Getting lucky to get results out of bad decisions does NOT make a decision a good one. But hey, take the thing as a whole. Has it been good, covid management in the UK or not? It's worthwhile analysing what when wrong and why and how that compared with other, differing strategies. Taiwan's looked pretty good initially and continues to. South Korea and Japan looked to have pretty good strategies and continue to. New Zealand and Australia had very different strategies to the UK. It's entirely reasonable to criticise a gambling addict's decision making when they bet the rent check and the bet wins. I hope that makes the point clearer for you, please disagree if you like but it should be clear that hindsight has nothing whatever to do with the criticisim.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > By contrast a considered and careful strategy is to be commended even if it turned out to be incorrect based on subsequently available facts. But the EU also gambled - they gambled that more time thinking would pay off, and it didn't. I think this is where you're going wrong with your argument: spending more time for care and consideration is also a gamble. How do you know how much care and consideration is the right amount? Is more care and consideration always better? Would it be better to still be considering whether to buy any vaccine at this stage? Would you commend that? No, obviously not. So at some point more care and consideration is bad, and you can't just say 'more care and consideration please' forever. At some point you need to apply judgement to stop considering and act. That's a judgement. That's a gamble. It's a gamble to stop considering your situation and it's a gamble to keep considering your situation. Both the UK and the EU took a gamble. The EU gambled that more consideration was better and they were wrong. So everyone's a gambler, if you want to look at it like that. But one gambler had better judgement than the other.
    - harry8 6y ago
      Everyone is making decision under uncertainty, all the time. If my impression of risk-loving decision making is wrong and there really was careful analysis of risks I'd love to hear it. It would restore a /lot/ of faith. What was the assessed risk that that an increased period between first and second jabs would greatly reduce the coverage? What was the advantage of the increased period? (ie is it likely that one jab will keep more people alive and/or do less damage to more covid survivors). Is the risk of going with a longer period between first and second worth it? With the benefit of hindsight there appears not to be a downside. To be totally clear: this is very, very, very welcome news. Now it's a proper asymmetry and it seems like this strategy is all upside from here. The alternative was to give people the two vaccine jabs the exact amount of time apart as had been tested and was known until this data came in. Then switch to this strategy. That is the conservative decision as you pretty much know what you're going to get. Is the longer period between first and second to get more people a first jab faster going to pay off? Again to be 100% clear let's hope so. Really let's hope it's a huge, huge win. This analysis of UK vaccination policy and the maximum coverage of first jabs that the new 3-month data helps to further (but not completely) inform has nothing to do with the EU or New Zealand or Taiwan or Brazil. Assessing the UK's gamblers' strategy of taking flyers is a reasonable thing to do in comparison to other EU nations, or NZ or Brazil... There are other aspects to the UK's various strategies that don't have much to do with the Oxford vaccine showing sustained protection of 76% ... If the UK has made some good calls in there based on risk asymmetry and balances of probabilities to go with the plethora of terrible ones they probably should trumpet them very loudly just restore people's faith that it's possible and that we can do better than 'gut-feel' or taking a flyer or "if she comes home we'll be loaded!" Which is how it's looking.
phatfish 6y ago
To produce the vaccine so fast that had to be done. The issues European production partners (one in Belgium I think) are suffering with the AstraZeneca vaccine are similar to those already solved at the UK production sites months ago because of the risk taken to start production early. Each production facility can have unique issues that effect yield that simply need time to resolve. Maybe AstraZeneca over promised, but it feels like risks to production yield were not properly assessed by those in charge of ensuring vaccine supply in the EU.
- harry8 6y ago
  I think we're talking about different things here. The unproven strategy that I meant was the one where a longer period ellapses between first and second jabs than had ever been tested. This new data is the test and shows that we probably don't now need to be concerned about that as we did when the strategy was first decided on and implemented. The conservative approach would have been to ensure everyone got 2 jabs with the elapsed time between them the amount of time that had been tested until this data came in to show that a longer period would actually still work. I don't know what the advantage of more people with a single jab is. Does anyone? Are you less likely to die? Or we hope so but don't have the data yet - the other leg of this bet so to speak.
- renaudg 6y ago
  The EU has a contract with AZ that makes ensuring vaccine supply to the EU the company's problem, even explicitly requiring the use of UK plants for this purpose if need be. The problem is that AZ had also promised the UK it would have priority over the goods produced on its soil : https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/dragging-astrazeneca-to-inevitable-compromise-in-covid-19-vaccine-row-1.4471383 https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/dragging-a...
  - blibble 6y ago
    they might have a contract with AZ, but it's very likely to be the wrong AZ... instead of AstraZeneca plc (.uk parent company) their contract is with AstraZeneca AB (.se subsidiary) the UK vaccine operation will be under the control of AB plc I would bet the commission insisted on having it with an EU entity without having thought the ramifications

by harry8 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

When they do badly you say it's because of their incompetence. When they do well you still say it's because of their incompetence. At every turn they’ve had credible expert advice telling them to do contradictory things. They’ve had to use judgement. If only they had the sense to use hindsight, like you.

harry8 6y ago
The UK's has been a gambler's strategy, for mine, seat-of-the-pants I'm-feeling-lucky stuff. This "win" does not compensate the losses nor justify the strategy. The win here is "the decision outcome has not been smashed by a possible downside." There were rather a lot of people suggesting that doing an unproven vaccine strategy of getting the maximum number of people their first vaccine and a longer period between first and second that had not yet been trialed, at all as a thing that was risky. People said it in advance. Who were the credible experts who recommended it? What support did they give that it wasn't a pretty big risk? If there was some and I missed it I'll put my hand up and say I was wrong. As I recall there was some serious doubt about whether anyone would get benfit from vaccination at all. Again if it was /known/ that it was likely to work that's not a bad decision - but I haven't seen that analysis. Have you? Please do link it if you have. I'm also not clear about what the upside for running that risk was. Are there better results for people contracting covid after only one jab? Do we have data? Or was that a flyer that it might turn out to be? Any links you have with an analysis of that is welcome. The "herd immunity" strategy was also described as risky by most experts that I saw. I think the word I used when looking at it, in advance of the numbers coming in was "insane," while being well aware there was at least a nonzero chance it could work better than the conservative approach. To say it has not come off is an understatement. If it did come off somehow due to dumb luck it would have been equally terrible decision making. It's too big a risk to take, the downside is immense. It is reasonable to criticise a risk-loving gambling strategy for a nation's health whether it comes off or not. I criticisised it before and after and I criticisise it when it comes off and when it doesn't. By contrast a considered and careful strategy is to be commended even if it turned out to be incorrect based on subsequently available facts. This is literally gambling on uncertain outcomes with people's lives and health. You want to do that as sensibly as you can. You want the analysis. You want it public. You're paying the downside. Getting lucky to get results out of bad decisions does NOT make a decision a good one. But hey, take the thing as a whole. Has it been good, covid management in the UK or not? It's worthwhile analysing what when wrong and why and how that compared with other, differing strategies. Taiwan's looked pretty good initially and continues to. South Korea and Japan looked to have pretty good strategies and continue to. New Zealand and Australia had very different strategies to the UK. It's entirely reasonable to criticise a gambling addict's decision making when they bet the rent check and the bet wins. I hope that makes the point clearer for you, please disagree if you like but it should be clear that hindsight has nothing whatever to do with the criticisim.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > By contrast a considered and careful strategy is to be commended even if it turned out to be incorrect based on subsequently available facts. But the EU also gambled - they gambled that more time thinking would pay off, and it didn't. I think this is where you're going wrong with your argument: spending more time for care and consideration is also a gamble. How do you know how much care and consideration is the right amount? Is more care and consideration always better? Would it be better to still be considering whether to buy any vaccine at this stage? Would you commend that? No, obviously not. So at some point more care and consideration is bad, and you can't just say 'more care and consideration please' forever. At some point you need to apply judgement to stop considering and act. That's a judgement. That's a gamble. It's a gamble to stop considering your situation and it's a gamble to keep considering your situation. Both the UK and the EU took a gamble. The EU gambled that more consideration was better and they were wrong. So everyone's a gambler, if you want to look at it like that. But one gambler had better judgement than the other.
  - harry8 6y ago
    Everyone is making decision under uncertainty, all the time. If my impression of risk-loving decision making is wrong and there really was careful analysis of risks I'd love to hear it. It would restore a /lot/ of faith. What was the assessed risk that that an increased period between first and second jabs would greatly reduce the coverage? What was the advantage of the increased period? (ie is it likely that one jab will keep more people alive and/or do less damage to more covid survivors). Is the risk of going with a longer period between first and second worth it? With the benefit of hindsight there appears not to be a downside. To be totally clear: this is very, very, very welcome news. Now it's a proper asymmetry and it seems like this strategy is all upside from here. The alternative was to give people the two vaccine jabs the exact amount of time apart as had been tested and was known until this data came in. Then switch to this strategy. That is the conservative decision as you pretty much know what you're going to get. Is the longer period between first and second to get more people a first jab faster going to pay off? Again to be 100% clear let's hope so. Really let's hope it's a huge, huge win. This analysis of UK vaccination policy and the maximum coverage of first jabs that the new 3-month data helps to further (but not completely) inform has nothing to do with the EU or New Zealand or Taiwan or Brazil. Assessing the UK's gamblers' strategy of taking flyers is a reasonable thing to do in comparison to other EU nations, or NZ or Brazil... There are other aspects to the UK's various strategies that don't have much to do with the Oxford vaccine showing sustained protection of 76% ... If the UK has made some good calls in there based on risk asymmetry and balances of probabilities to go with the plethora of terrible ones they probably should trumpet them very loudly just restore people's faith that it's possible and that we can do better than 'gut-feel' or taking a flyer or "if she comes home we'll be loaded!" Which is how it's looking.

phatfish 6y ago

To produce the vaccine so fast that had to be done. The issues European production partners (one in Belgium I think) are suffering with the AstraZeneca vaccine are similar to those already solved at the UK production sites months ago because of the risk taken to start production early. Each production facility can have unique issues that effect yield that simply need time to resolve. Maybe AstraZeneca over promised, but it feels like risks to production yield were not properly assessed by those in charge of ensuring vaccine supply in the EU.

harry8 6y ago
I think we're talking about different things here. The unproven strategy that I meant was the one where a longer period ellapses between first and second jabs than had ever been tested. This new data is the test and shows that we probably don't now need to be concerned about that as we did when the strategy was first decided on and implemented. The conservative approach would have been to ensure everyone got 2 jabs with the elapsed time between them the amount of time that had been tested until this data came in to show that a longer period would actually still work. I don't know what the advantage of more people with a single jab is. Does anyone? Are you less likely to die? Or we hope so but don't have the data yet - the other leg of this bet so to speak.
renaudg 6y ago
The EU has a contract with AZ that makes ensuring vaccine supply to the EU the company's problem, even explicitly requiring the use of UK plants for this purpose if need be. The problem is that AZ had also promised the UK it would have priority over the goods produced on its soil : https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/dragging-astrazeneca-to-inevitable-compromise-in-covid-19-vaccine-row-1.4471383 https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/dragging-a...
- blibble 6y ago
  they might have a contract with AZ, but it's very likely to be the wrong AZ... instead of AstraZeneca plc (.uk parent company) their contract is with AstraZeneca AB (.se subsidiary) the UK vaccine operation will be under the control of AB plc I would bet the commission insisted on having it with an EU entity without having thought the ramifications