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> The mRNA vaccine technology is "agile". Yes and this means governments can quickly adapt to new variants by reformulating the vaccine, dumping old stock by "

> The mRNA vaccine technology is "agile". Yes and this means governments can quickly adapt to new variants by reformulating the vaccine, dumping old stock by "donating" it to developing nations, or dumping it, and buying new stock from big pharma. Since developing nations will always have far lower vaccination rates than first world countries, the virus will continue to mutate and proliferate outside of America and Europe, ensuring new opportunities for revving the vaccine. That's a sustainable business model for the first world.

tekknik 5y ago
> dumping old stock by "donating" it to developing nations A primary complaint is that “rich nations” hoard vaccines. doesn’t this exacerbate this?
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  If rich nations paid for poor nations to reach 95%+ vaccination levels, the virus would be tamed for everyone's benefit. With the prevailing scheme, in which rich nations fund high vax levels domestically, and allow poor nations to languish, the virus is always going to have reservoirs around the world in which it can mutate, thereby requiring new rounds of vaccination in the rich countries periodically. The total cost of vaccinating the whole world in 1 year would be far less than the cost of infinite rolling booster programs. And yet, we do the latter. Why? That's the secret sauce of the sustainable business model.
  - isignal 5y ago
    This is incorrect, cost of vaccines is not the only bottleneck. For example, India is currently manufacturing more vaccines than can can be sold to other countries. The bottleneck is apparently people on ground to get shots into arms. Most of the developed countries also used mRNA vaccines which needed low temperature refrigeration. Such facilities are cost prohibitive in poorer countries. Beyond all this, there’s a significant worldwide population of vaccine skeptics who will not take free vaccines at their doorstep if available.
    - wombatmobile 5y ago
      Yes, it is the total cost of vaccination programs ie the cost of the molecules + the cost of the rollout infrastructure. Vaccine hesitancy can’t be measured until a country has reached the point where everybody who wants to be inoculated has been, and there are still excess supplies. Australia is at 90% and still increasing, with plenty of incentives still left to try. The most effective drivers have been the new variants - delta and now omicron. Each time the infection rate has soared, the take up rate for vax has followed commensurately.
  - katbyte 5y ago
    Some rich nations are having a hard time achieving 70%, 60% and so forth in many areas and vaccine availability and cost are not the limiting factor.
trutannus 5y ago
Nothing you've said is incorrect. I have to wonder though if this dumping of old vaccines on people who wouldn't have gotten them in the first place might allow people to survive who might otherwise have not. Sure, the vaccines are not optimal, but they do reduce risk. And of course this situation isn't fair, but perhaps it's still better than the baseline conditions these folks would have had to live with.
cma 5y ago
Aren't we likely to get animal reservoirs anyway with how easily it has spread to cats, etc.?

tekknik 5y ago

> dumping old stock by "donating" it to developing nations A primary complaint is that “rich nations” hoard vaccines. doesn’t this exacerbate this?

wombatmobile 5y ago
If rich nations paid for poor nations to reach 95%+ vaccination levels, the virus would be tamed for everyone's benefit. With the prevailing scheme, in which rich nations fund high vax levels domestically, and allow poor nations to languish, the virus is always going to have reservoirs around the world in which it can mutate, thereby requiring new rounds of vaccination in the rich countries periodically. The total cost of vaccinating the whole world in 1 year would be far less than the cost of infinite rolling booster programs. And yet, we do the latter. Why? That's the secret sauce of the sustainable business model.
- isignal 5y ago
  This is incorrect, cost of vaccines is not the only bottleneck. For example, India is currently manufacturing more vaccines than can can be sold to other countries. The bottleneck is apparently people on ground to get shots into arms. Most of the developed countries also used mRNA vaccines which needed low temperature refrigeration. Such facilities are cost prohibitive in poorer countries. Beyond all this, there’s a significant worldwide population of vaccine skeptics who will not take free vaccines at their doorstep if available.
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    Yes, it is the total cost of vaccination programs ie the cost of the molecules + the cost of the rollout infrastructure. Vaccine hesitancy can’t be measured until a country has reached the point where everybody who wants to be inoculated has been, and there are still excess supplies. Australia is at 90% and still increasing, with plenty of incentives still left to try. The most effective drivers have been the new variants - delta and now omicron. Each time the infection rate has soared, the take up rate for vax has followed commensurately.
- katbyte 5y ago
  Some rich nations are having a hard time achieving 70%, 60% and so forth in many areas and vaccine availability and cost are not the limiting factor.

trutannus 5y ago

Nothing you've said is incorrect. I have to wonder though if this dumping of old vaccines on people who wouldn't have gotten them in the first place might allow people to survive who might otherwise have not. Sure, the vaccines are not optimal, but they do reduce risk. And of course this situation isn't fair, but perhaps it's still better than the baseline conditions these folks would have had to live with.

cma 5y ago

Aren't we likely to get animal reservoirs anyway with how easily it has spread to cats, etc.?