5 ms·

> As I understand it, because they were ready to pay whatever it costs. That particular cost wasn't financial though. It was a promise to fast track rollout wh

> As I understand it, because they were ready to pay whatever it costs. That particular cost wasn't financial though. It was a promise to fast track rollout where other countries wanted to go through lengthy approval and review processes (I am not saying lengthy == bad in that case), vaccinate their population as fast as possible and share data about efficacy with the manufacturers. The Israeali government was ready to take risks that many other countries weren't.

BurningFrog 6y ago
Interesting! I didn't know that! I found an article confirming this. Though it also says > "Israel paid about $30 per dose, almost double what other nations did" I'm always shocked by how little money that is. $3000 per dose would be cheap!!! https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/05/the-secret-sauce-behind-israels-successful-covid-19-vaccination-program/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/05/the-secre...
- thitcanh 6y ago
  Bu US drugs standards, maybe, but given that they plan to sell billions of doses I think that's a pretty good price, especially because they already got plenty of grants and support during development.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Here is how I think of the numbers: So far the US has spent $5300B on Covid relief packages. That's around $15,000 per American. If a vaccine dose can save $15,000, $30 is absurdly cheap. $3000 would be an incredible bargain! This is also why the EU haggling over a few dollars per dose looks so insane to those who have done the math.
    - tim333 6y ago
      Also if governments had said we want vaccines! Will pay $100 a head for an effective one I think private enterprise would have cranked out billions by now. Supply depends on how much you invest in production. Maybe it's late with vaccines but the same principle applies to carbon. Set a $200 carbon price and private enterprise would go crazy with plans to take advantage.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Israel approved the Pfizer vaccine 5 days before the US. The data sharing agreement/ability to deploy the vaccine were the additional factors, not an outlier stance on the risks.
- tim333 6y ago
  People have way undervalued vaccines. The EU was haggling to get AZ down from like $5 to $2 when the cost of having someone off work for another couple of months is more $5000.
  - Voloskaya 6y ago
    To be fair I'm pretty sure discussion about pricing never were the bottleneck, they happened in parallel to the safety/efficacy approval, so Europe saved 1.2B Euros doing this, at no other cost.
    - tim333 6y ago
      Well $5 vs $2 isn't really what happened. It was more in the UK: >Under Bingham’s direction, the taskforce helped the Government to secure agreements to have access to six different vaccines across four different formats, amounting to 357 million doses – without being certain any of them would work. Spending £1 billion up front, it could not have been a bigger gamble. Whereas the EU didn't do that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/kate-bingham-exclusive-interview-eu-leaders-undermining-vaccine/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/kate-bingham-exclusiv...
      - Voloskaya 6y ago
        What did the EU "not do"? The EU did pretty much exactly the same thing, securing access to 2.3B doses from 6 different providers and investing 2.7B$ for vaccine development (on top of the price tag of the vaccines themselves). I don't think I understand what you are trying to say.
        tim333 6y ago
        Not sure. To be honest I'm not that up on the details.
dane-pgp 6y ago
To provide a little more context, Israel is having an election today in which Netanyahu will struggle to secure victory. If he fails to keep the role of Prime Minister, that will make it harder for him to avoid prosecution in the multiple corruption cases that he has been indicted for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu

BurningFrog 6y ago

Interesting! I didn't know that! I found an article confirming this. Though it also says > "Israel paid about $30 per dose, almost double what other nations did" I'm always shocked by how little money that is. $3000 per dose would be cheap!!! https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/05/the-secret-sauce-behind-israels-successful-covid-19-vaccination-program/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/05/the-secre...

thitcanh 6y ago
Bu US drugs standards, maybe, but given that they plan to sell billions of doses I think that's a pretty good price, especially because they already got plenty of grants and support during development.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Here is how I think of the numbers: So far the US has spent $5300B on Covid relief packages. That's around $15,000 per American. If a vaccine dose can save $15,000, $30 is absurdly cheap. $3000 would be an incredible bargain! This is also why the EU haggling over a few dollars per dose looks so insane to those who have done the math.
  - tim333 6y ago
    Also if governments had said we want vaccines! Will pay $100 a head for an effective one I think private enterprise would have cranked out billions by now. Supply depends on how much you invest in production. Maybe it's late with vaccines but the same principle applies to carbon. Set a $200 carbon price and private enterprise would go crazy with plans to take advantage.
maxerickson 6y ago
Israel approved the Pfizer vaccine 5 days before the US. The data sharing agreement/ability to deploy the vaccine were the additional factors, not an outlier stance on the risks.
tim333 6y ago
People have way undervalued vaccines. The EU was haggling to get AZ down from like $5 to $2 when the cost of having someone off work for another couple of months is more $5000.
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  To be fair I'm pretty sure discussion about pricing never were the bottleneck, they happened in parallel to the safety/efficacy approval, so Europe saved 1.2B Euros doing this, at no other cost.
  - tim333 6y ago
    Well $5 vs $2 isn't really what happened. It was more in the UK: >Under Bingham’s direction, the taskforce helped the Government to secure agreements to have access to six different vaccines across four different formats, amounting to 357 million doses – without being certain any of them would work. Spending £1 billion up front, it could not have been a bigger gamble. Whereas the EU didn't do that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/kate-bingham-exclusive-interview-eu-leaders-undermining-vaccine/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/kate-bingham-exclusiv...
    - Voloskaya 6y ago
      What did the EU "not do"? The EU did pretty much exactly the same thing, securing access to 2.3B doses from 6 different providers and investing 2.7B$ for vaccine development (on top of the price tag of the vaccines themselves). I don't think I understand what you are trying to say.
      - tim333 6y ago
        Not sure. To be honest I'm not that up on the details.

dane-pgp 6y ago

To provide a little more context, Israel is having an election today in which Netanyahu will struggle to secure victory. If he fails to keep the role of Prime Minister, that will make it harder for him to avoid prosecution in the multiple corruption cases that he has been indicted for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu