3 ms·

The EU had a substantially delayed rollout of vaccines compared to the US [1]. You can see that the purple line (US) is about 2 months ahead of the yellow (EU).

The EU had a substantially delayed rollout of vaccines compared to the US [1]. You can see that the purple line (US) is about 2 months ahead of the yellow (EU). Especially in the early days of the rollout the EU was very behind. [1]: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2412 https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2412

morelisp 5y ago
> Especially in the early days of the rollout the EU was very behind. On one hand I agree, but on the other hand looking back now after 13-14 months, did it matter? Was any public health outcome significantly improved by that lead? (From the qualitative reports I've read I might believe there was in the UK - but not prima facie US vs. EU.)
- e4e78a06 5y ago
  That's a pretty hard analysis to make. You'd have to compare people that 1) wanted to get vaccinated and 2) _could_ have been vaccinated if they were in the US instead of Europe and 3) died from COVID during the 2 month delay and see how many lives were saved. My uninformed guess just eyeballing the historical death graphs and vaccine rollout is probably low 5 figures range.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    I agree, analyzing it is probably outside the scope of any individual researcher. Nonetheless it feels like something you'd want to do before taking OWS as "a new model" for intervention! It's probably better than "control" (doing literally nothing) but was it better than, I don't know, instead subsidizing / organizing grocery delivery and other kinds of social support networks for two months? That's certainly less scientism-sexy and technocratic but if you're talking about maybe 20k deaths out of a million, it seems like we should be able to do much better. (At that low an impact, I might even believe the cost savings alone from the longer negotiations were justified - if I believed Germany would reallocate them to public health programs and not a new highway or gas pipeline or something.)
csdvrx 5y ago
Indeed, it may seem small, but if we calculate the area under the curve and the delay towards getting 1 then 2 doses coverage, I'm sure this will have saved a lot of lives. Any way I look at it, OWS has been an inspiring success: it proves that regardless of political divisions or uncertainties, we as a species can achieve wonderful things.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
The EU didn't pay the highest prices to buy all available vaccines and requested higher accountability ( https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-struggle-pfizer-biontech-astrazeneca/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-s... ) They secured the lowest prices and have a higher vaccination rate and overtook the US by now. But it's also comparing apples and peers. It should be more reasonable to compare it with the UK. Where the US was indeed also faster. I think the rollout in Europe ( and others ) was actually delayed because of Operation Warp Speed. Buying all vaccines at premium prices.
- e4e78a06 5y ago
  We're talking a $5 per vaccine difference, which is minuscule compared to the economic impact and lives saved. It was wrong of the EU to push so hard on price. But regardless your own article claims production capacity in Europe was the problem (precisely the thing that OWS and the Defense Production Act rectified in the US): > “Production was always going to be a problem,” said Schulthess. The industry had been pulling back from Europe for years — in part because of growing vaccine hesitancy. “It takes five years and a pile of cash to build a [vaccine factory] by the book,” said Schulthess. And European infrastructure was unprepared for vaccine distribution (again from your own article): > The Hague had bet so strongly on the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab being the first to be approved that it hadn’t finished preparing to transport mRNA vaccines, which need to be kept at temperatures far below freezing And there were bureaucratic delays associated with getting other vaccine variants (same article): > Countries can’t just follow the U.K.’s lead by unilaterally authorizing vaccines purchased by the EU — doses purchased by Brussels can only be released after they get the EMA’s signoff, according to the agreement. So even though Budapest tried to make a point by green-lighting the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, it won’t get any shots before the rest of the bloc. Please read your own article as it names and shames all the reasons of the European delay, of which merely one is price. > have a higher vaccination rate and overtook the US by now Yes, but we're discussing the impact of OWS which would only change how fast the initial rollout was. Obviously now there are a lot of antivaxers in the US who will never get the vaccine but that's unrelated to OWS.
  - 5y ago
Yoric 5y ago
Indeed, the US pre-ordered vaccines without waiting for tests, while EU was more cautious. Turned out that the US was more right than the EU in that case.

morelisp 5y ago

> Especially in the early days of the rollout the EU was very behind. On one hand I agree, but on the other hand looking back now after 13-14 months, did it matter? Was any public health outcome significantly improved by that lead? (From the qualitative reports I've read I might believe there was in the UK - but not prima facie US vs. EU.)

e4e78a06 5y ago
That's a pretty hard analysis to make. You'd have to compare people that 1) wanted to get vaccinated and 2) _could_ have been vaccinated if they were in the US instead of Europe and 3) died from COVID during the 2 month delay and see how many lives were saved. My uninformed guess just eyeballing the historical death graphs and vaccine rollout is probably low 5 figures range.
- morelisp 5y ago
  I agree, analyzing it is probably outside the scope of any individual researcher. Nonetheless it feels like something you'd want to do before taking OWS as "a new model" for intervention! It's probably better than "control" (doing literally nothing) but was it better than, I don't know, instead subsidizing / organizing grocery delivery and other kinds of social support networks for two months? That's certainly less scientism-sexy and technocratic but if you're talking about maybe 20k deaths out of a million, it seems like we should be able to do much better. (At that low an impact, I might even believe the cost savings alone from the longer negotiations were justified - if I believed Germany would reallocate them to public health programs and not a new highway or gas pipeline or something.)

csdvrx 5y ago

Indeed, it may seem small, but if we calculate the area under the curve and the delay towards getting 1 then 2 doses coverage, I'm sure this will have saved a lot of lives. Any way I look at it, OWS has been an inspiring success: it proves that regardless of political divisions or uncertainties, we as a species can achieve wonderful things.

NicoJuicy 5y ago

The EU didn't pay the highest prices to buy all available vaccines and requested higher accountability ( https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-struggle-pfizer-biontech-astrazeneca/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-s... ) They secured the lowest prices and have a higher vaccination rate and overtook the US by now. But it's also comparing apples and peers. It should be more reasonable to compare it with the UK. Where the US was indeed also faster. I think the rollout in Europe ( and others ) was actually delayed because of Operation Warp Speed. Buying all vaccines at premium prices.

e4e78a06 5y ago
We're talking a $5 per vaccine difference, which is minuscule compared to the economic impact and lives saved. It was wrong of the EU to push so hard on price. But regardless your own article claims production capacity in Europe was the problem (precisely the thing that OWS and the Defense Production Act rectified in the US): > “Production was always going to be a problem,” said Schulthess. The industry had been pulling back from Europe for years — in part because of growing vaccine hesitancy. “It takes five years and a pile of cash to build a [vaccine factory] by the book,” said Schulthess. And European infrastructure was unprepared for vaccine distribution (again from your own article): > The Hague had bet so strongly on the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab being the first to be approved that it hadn’t finished preparing to transport mRNA vaccines, which need to be kept at temperatures far below freezing And there were bureaucratic delays associated with getting other vaccine variants (same article): > Countries can’t just follow the U.K.’s lead by unilaterally authorizing vaccines purchased by the EU — doses purchased by Brussels can only be released after they get the EMA’s signoff, according to the agreement. So even though Budapest tried to make a point by green-lighting the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, it won’t get any shots before the rest of the bloc. Please read your own article as it names and shames all the reasons of the European delay, of which merely one is price. > have a higher vaccination rate and overtook the US by now Yes, but we're discussing the impact of OWS which would only change how fast the initial rollout was. Obviously now there are a lot of antivaxers in the US who will never get the vaccine but that's unrelated to OWS.
- 5y ago

Yoric 5y ago

Indeed, the US pre-ordered vaccines without waiting for tests, while EU was more cautious. Turned out that the US was more right than the EU in that case.