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Most western countries could have easily afforded to build their own factories but they cheapened out and didn’t want to spend the 10 million for a one off fact

Most western countries could have easily afforded to build their own factories but they cheapened out and didn’t want to spend the 10 million for a one off factory. That’s a lot harder to defend than throwing 100 million a day out of the window on lockdowns.

dragontamer 6y ago
The factories needed to be set up last year, before the vaccines were approved. IIRC, there were well over 20+ vaccines in the USA alone that were being developed. I dunno about other countries... it turned out that the mRNA (Pfizer / Moderna) and adenovirus (J&J / AstraZeneca) seem to have been the fastest at production. Everyone who spent $Millions on other vaccines are still waiting for those tests to finish. Only if you were lucky enough to pick Pfizer / Moderna / AZ / J&J are you actually winning in the vaccine race right now. At this point, its looking like if you bet on the wrong vaccine, you lost your entire investment. ------------- USA spent billions on building "all the above". We have millions of AZ-doses sitting on the shelves, waiting for final approval (final tests just finished this past week). UK ordered 4-doses per person (when only 2-doses are needed, and even though its not known if children can safely take the vaccine yet). That's another reason why UK is so fast: they aggressively bought extra vaccines at an extreme rate. UK plans to either sell, or donate, those extra vaccines later on. By buying so much extra vaccine, UK ensured that they are at the front of the line when it comes to vaccine supply from the various companies.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  Canada ordered 9.6 doses per person, and we're substantially behind the US/UK.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Yeah, six months ago I thought Canada would do best because they ordered the most choices. In hindsight I now know they should have ordered less and instead invested in a supply chain for what they ordered. It would have been more of a gamble though. I wonder if they could have built a MRNA plant that could flex to moderna or Pfizer, and similar for the other 4 vaccine technologies (that I can't spell), even though only two are significant so far. (With promising futures for the others )
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      Considering it's taking 18 months to build a NovaVax plant, I don't think a plan based on domestic production would have helped.
      - bluGill 6y ago
        Plants can be built faster if you are willing to pay more.
        bryanlarsen 6y ago
        Canada is spending $170M on this one. I don't think more money would help.
- oezi 6y ago
  The US didn't spend significantly more than Europe, nor did the UK, but both did so a bit earlier and with more nationalistic approaches. Due to the production ramp this leads to 2-4 months delay for Europe. Still better than Canada or Mexico. That German Biontech was allowed to partner with Pfizer will probably have cost 100000 European lives at the end, while saving 200000 American ones.
  - throwaway19937 6y ago
    According to (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vaccine-rollout-astrazeneca.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vacci...) the US spent at least 3x (10 billion) as the EU (3.2 billion).
    - brianwawok 6y ago
      Which if you look at the economic damage of a lockdown, either price is laughably cheap. Like this is a multi-trillion dollar economic event, spending even 10x that much would still likely be a "deal".
      - dcolkitt 6y ago
        Agree. I think a fair approach rather than targeting price would have been to pre-allocate a percent of the economic impact of the lockdown. If pandemic lockdowns cost about 10% of annual GDP, then pre-allocating 1% of GDP to vaccines seems pretty conservative if anything. That means something like $100-200 billion for the US or EU. The EU should have just pre-allocated $100 billion on vaccines. That would have been enough to secure every adult a vaccine from the big four manufacturers, plus leave a big pot of money leftover for contingencies.
      - astrange 6y ago
        Note you don't even need the "lockdown" for the economic damage, it will happen anyway. People don't want to go to restaurants if it's going to kill their grandma. The lockdown is actually merciful for many businesses; it's cheaper to close a restaurant entirely than run it at 50% capacity, and it's the only way conventions and other events can get out of their contracts with their venues.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  At least for Moderna, it wasn’t pure luck to pick them. I was following it from near the beginning, and there was really solid data coming out on its effectiveness. Pfizer/Bio took a nearly identical approach. And overspending by buying a hundred million doses of each of the 20 vaccines STILL would’ve been a massive bargain.
  - astrange 6y ago
    Moderna and Pfizer are the "best" vaccines but it doesn't matter that much - everyone of them out there is good enough. The flu shot is only 50% effective, and all of these are better. Some like AZ report low top line numbers like 60%, but you can look at the number of severe cases needing hospitalization. It's still approximately zero.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
It takes more than money to build a factory. Canada started refitting an old GSK factory to make vaccines in May 2020. It'll be ready November 2021. I'm not sure where your $10M number comes from, Canada is spending CAD170M (USD135M).

dragontamer 6y ago

The factories needed to be set up last year, before the vaccines were approved. IIRC, there were well over 20+ vaccines in the USA alone that were being developed. I dunno about other countries... it turned out that the mRNA (Pfizer / Moderna) and adenovirus (J&J / AstraZeneca) seem to have been the fastest at production. Everyone who spent $Millions on other vaccines are still waiting for those tests to finish. Only if you were lucky enough to pick Pfizer / Moderna / AZ / J&J are you actually winning in the vaccine race right now. At this point, its looking like if you bet on the wrong vaccine, you lost your entire investment. ------------- USA spent billions on building "all the above". We have millions of AZ-doses sitting on the shelves, waiting for final approval (final tests just finished this past week). UK ordered 4-doses per person (when only 2-doses are needed, and even though its not known if children can safely take the vaccine yet). That's another reason why UK is so fast: they aggressively bought extra vaccines at an extreme rate. UK plans to either sell, or donate, those extra vaccines later on. By buying so much extra vaccine, UK ensured that they are at the front of the line when it comes to vaccine supply from the various companies.

bryanlarsen 6y ago
Canada ordered 9.6 doses per person, and we're substantially behind the US/UK.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Yeah, six months ago I thought Canada would do best because they ordered the most choices. In hindsight I now know they should have ordered less and instead invested in a supply chain for what they ordered. It would have been more of a gamble though. I wonder if they could have built a MRNA plant that could flex to moderna or Pfizer, and similar for the other 4 vaccine technologies (that I can't spell), even though only two are significant so far. (With promising futures for the others )
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    Considering it's taking 18 months to build a NovaVax plant, I don't think a plan based on domestic production would have helped.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Plants can be built faster if you are willing to pay more.
      - bryanlarsen 6y ago
        Canada is spending $170M on this one. I don't think more money would help.
oezi 6y ago
The US didn't spend significantly more than Europe, nor did the UK, but both did so a bit earlier and with more nationalistic approaches. Due to the production ramp this leads to 2-4 months delay for Europe. Still better than Canada or Mexico. That German Biontech was allowed to partner with Pfizer will probably have cost 100000 European lives at the end, while saving 200000 American ones.
- throwaway19937 6y ago
  According to (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vaccine-rollout-astrazeneca.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vacci...) the US spent at least 3x (10 billion) as the EU (3.2 billion).
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    Which if you look at the economic damage of a lockdown, either price is laughably cheap. Like this is a multi-trillion dollar economic event, spending even 10x that much would still likely be a "deal".
    - dcolkitt 6y ago
      Agree. I think a fair approach rather than targeting price would have been to pre-allocate a percent of the economic impact of the lockdown. If pandemic lockdowns cost about 10% of annual GDP, then pre-allocating 1% of GDP to vaccines seems pretty conservative if anything. That means something like $100-200 billion for the US or EU. The EU should have just pre-allocated $100 billion on vaccines. That would have been enough to secure every adult a vaccine from the big four manufacturers, plus leave a big pot of money leftover for contingencies.
    - astrange 6y ago
      Note you don't even need the "lockdown" for the economic damage, it will happen anyway. People don't want to go to restaurants if it's going to kill their grandma. The lockdown is actually merciful for many businesses; it's cheaper to close a restaurant entirely than run it at 50% capacity, and it's the only way conventions and other events can get out of their contracts with their venues.
Robotbeat 6y ago
At least for Moderna, it wasn’t pure luck to pick them. I was following it from near the beginning, and there was really solid data coming out on its effectiveness. Pfizer/Bio took a nearly identical approach. And overspending by buying a hundred million doses of each of the 20 vaccines STILL would’ve been a massive bargain.
- astrange 6y ago
  Moderna and Pfizer are the "best" vaccines but it doesn't matter that much - everyone of them out there is good enough. The flu shot is only 50% effective, and all of these are better. Some like AZ report low top line numbers like 60%, but you can look at the number of severe cases needing hospitalization. It's still approximately zero.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

It takes more than money to build a factory. Canada started refitting an old GSK factory to make vaccines in May 2020. It'll be ready November 2021. I'm not sure where your $10M number comes from, Canada is spending CAD170M (USD135M).