9 ms·

$60 billion for two years worth of shots? Sounds like a steal. Covid has cost the global economy Trillions and Trillions of dollars already, and all the downstr

by ipspam 5y ago

$60 billion for two years worth of shots? Sounds like a steal. Covid has cost the global economy Trillions and Trillions of dollars already, and all the downstream costs will probably add up to $100 trillion real dollars when factoring in inflation, money printing, national debt, state/provincial debts/local debts/consumer debt increases.

morpheos137 5y ago
The world massively over reacted to covid a disease that mainly affects the old and infirm. $60,000,000,000 / 10,000 saved works out to $6,000,000 per life saved. If the median age of death of a covid victim is 80 then this expenditure amounts to a massive misallocation of resources just on the vaccine alone never mind the hundreds of billions (actually trillions, as you say!) more spent on economically disruptive and ineffective lockdowns. Everybody dies sooner or later. The world should never have shut down to protect people from a disease whose median death age is 80! It is social, economic and biological mass insanity. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-age-penalty-11592003287 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-age-penalty-115920032...
- neurotrace 5y ago
  Death isn't the only thing that comes from the virus. You're also ignoring all of the younger people who are immunocompromised or otherwise susceptible to the effects of the disease. Alternative suggestion: everyone just get their shots just like they do their flu shot and we can all move forward with our lives.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    Just think of the healthcare Costs that will eventually have to be paid by Medicare and Medicaid for hospital visits and it’s a steal
  - guidovranken 5y ago
    You can take all the shots you want but you'll never be able to move forward with your life.
- macintux 5y ago
  As we're seeing with the delta variant, the longer we allow the disease to vigorously spread, the potentially more dangerous it becomes. So we (mostly) kept hospitals from having to add beds inside parking garages, and morgues from having to rent ice trucks, and perhaps we also have slowed the rate of new variants. With the lockdowns, social distancing, masking, etc, flu deaths practically dropped to zero while COVID reached #3 for causes of death in the U.S. Just how serious could that death toll have been if we hadn't "overreacted"?
  - loopz 5y ago
    It'd just skyrocket until people took it seriously and locked down even more. We saw that in Italy 2020 and now in India, Brazil.
  - morpheos137 5y ago
    Is there compelling evidence that "lockdowns" in the west actually had a significant impact on the spread?
    - macintux 5y ago
      Not a scientist, but again the fact that we nearly eliminated the flu through our countermeasures strikes me as strong circumstantial evidence. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/season/faq-flu-season-2020-2021.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/season/faq-flu-season-2020-2021.htm
      - morpheos137 5y ago
        I wonder how many people got the normal flu and did not report it because they did not / could not got to the doctor because of covid social distancing policies. What goes unreported does not cease to exist.
        macintux 5y ago
        Pediatric deaths were down from 199 to 1. Admittedly the 199 was a peak, but still that’s an impressive drop. Even if we assume last year was traumatic enough that things got missed, it seems evident that the flu took it on the chin.
mdbug 5y ago
The costs of the pandemic are one side. The other is the cost of developing and producing the vaccines. In a normal market situation, prices are determined by supply and demand. But that's really not such a situation here. The question from the government's point of view has to be whether you could have had the vaccine cheaper. After all, large sums of money have already been invested by the states for research and development. The question is what the contracts and conditions were for these investments. But if the manufacturers had hardly any costs and risks during development and are now allowed to hold the rights to the patents and make large profits with the vaccines, then in my opinion something has gone wrong. However, I don't know if that is actually the case here.
- rualca 5y ago
  > In a normal market situation, prices are determined by supply and demand. But that's really not such a situation here. Isn't it exactly the situation here? I mean, a few months ago we even had central governments bid against their own local governments to have access to vaccines. Doesn't that lay out quite clearly that this is a demand-driven market?
  - mdbug 5y ago
    The market is not normal because countries have invested massive sums of money into these companies without acquiring shares in return, so I just hope they have negotiated other terms to get the vaccines at fair prices.
    - rualca 5y ago
      > The market is not normal because countries have invested massive sums of money into these companies without acquiring shares in return (...) I don't believe this is a fair or accurate description of what really happens. Countries invest in education and free and open research, countries invest in entrepreneurship and in people launching startups, and countries invest in partnerships between their public research and private companies to foster the creation of added-value products and services. And in the end those companies pay taxes back to the state, which in Europe (where BioNTech is from) is higher than 20%. Furthermore, your comment has nothing at all to do with markets. You're trying to pin onto the "market" tag one of the most basic characteristics of social democratic societies, where the state invests in infrastructure and in lowering or eliminating barriers to entry in business.
refurb 5y ago
A good example is Singapore. Total direct costs of support for business and individuals? $60B from what I’ve seen. And that does not include the economic costs of shutting down the economy. Cost to vaccinate everyone in the country? ~$250-500M for the vaccines alone. The vaccines are an absolute steal at their current price..

by ipspam 5y ago

morpheos137 5y ago

The world massively over reacted to covid a disease that mainly affects the old and infirm. $60,000,000,000 / 10,000 saved works out to $6,000,000 per life saved. If the median age of death of a covid victim is 80 then this expenditure amounts to a massive misallocation of resources just on the vaccine alone never mind the hundreds of billions (actually trillions, as you say!) more spent on economically disruptive and ineffective lockdowns. Everybody dies sooner or later. The world should never have shut down to protect people from a disease whose median death age is 80! It is social, economic and biological mass insanity. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-age-penalty-11592003287 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-age-penalty-115920032...

neurotrace 5y ago
Death isn't the only thing that comes from the virus. You're also ignoring all of the younger people who are immunocompromised or otherwise susceptible to the effects of the disease. Alternative suggestion: everyone just get their shots just like they do their flu shot and we can all move forward with our lives.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Just think of the healthcare Costs that will eventually have to be paid by Medicare and Medicaid for hospital visits and it’s a steal
- guidovranken 5y ago
  You can take all the shots you want but you'll never be able to move forward with your life.
macintux 5y ago
As we're seeing with the delta variant, the longer we allow the disease to vigorously spread, the potentially more dangerous it becomes. So we (mostly) kept hospitals from having to add beds inside parking garages, and morgues from having to rent ice trucks, and perhaps we also have slowed the rate of new variants. With the lockdowns, social distancing, masking, etc, flu deaths practically dropped to zero while COVID reached #3 for causes of death in the U.S. Just how serious could that death toll have been if we hadn't "overreacted"?
- loopz 5y ago
  It'd just skyrocket until people took it seriously and locked down even more. We saw that in Italy 2020 and now in India, Brazil.
- morpheos137 5y ago
  Is there compelling evidence that "lockdowns" in the west actually had a significant impact on the spread?
  - macintux 5y ago
    Not a scientist, but again the fact that we nearly eliminated the flu through our countermeasures strikes me as strong circumstantial evidence. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/season/faq-flu-season-2020-2021.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/season/faq-flu-season-2020-2021.htm
    - morpheos137 5y ago
      I wonder how many people got the normal flu and did not report it because they did not / could not got to the doctor because of covid social distancing policies. What goes unreported does not cease to exist.
      - macintux 5y ago
        Pediatric deaths were down from 199 to 1. Admittedly the 199 was a peak, but still that’s an impressive drop. Even if we assume last year was traumatic enough that things got missed, it seems evident that the flu took it on the chin.

mdbug 5y ago

The costs of the pandemic are one side. The other is the cost of developing and producing the vaccines. In a normal market situation, prices are determined by supply and demand. But that's really not such a situation here. The question from the government's point of view has to be whether you could have had the vaccine cheaper. After all, large sums of money have already been invested by the states for research and development. The question is what the contracts and conditions were for these investments. But if the manufacturers had hardly any costs and risks during development and are now allowed to hold the rights to the patents and make large profits with the vaccines, then in my opinion something has gone wrong. However, I don't know if that is actually the case here.

rualca 5y ago
> In a normal market situation, prices are determined by supply and demand. But that's really not such a situation here. Isn't it exactly the situation here? I mean, a few months ago we even had central governments bid against their own local governments to have access to vaccines. Doesn't that lay out quite clearly that this is a demand-driven market?
- mdbug 5y ago
  The market is not normal because countries have invested massive sums of money into these companies without acquiring shares in return, so I just hope they have negotiated other terms to get the vaccines at fair prices.
  - rualca 5y ago
    > The market is not normal because countries have invested massive sums of money into these companies without acquiring shares in return (...) I don't believe this is a fair or accurate description of what really happens. Countries invest in education and free and open research, countries invest in entrepreneurship and in people launching startups, and countries invest in partnerships between their public research and private companies to foster the creation of added-value products and services. And in the end those companies pay taxes back to the state, which in Europe (where BioNTech is from) is higher than 20%. Furthermore, your comment has nothing at all to do with markets. You're trying to pin onto the "market" tag one of the most basic characteristics of social democratic societies, where the state invests in infrastructure and in lowering or eliminating barriers to entry in business.

refurb 5y ago

A good example is Singapore. Total direct costs of support for business and individuals? $60B from what I’ve seen. And that does not include the economic costs of shutting down the economy. Cost to vaccinate everyone in the country? ~$250-500M for the vaccines alone. The vaccines are an absolute steal at their current price..