Silvaire wrote:
In the US, I’ll call around and find the medical facility that’s offering what I want.
That’s the normal thing here as well for all vaccines. All those you haven’t taken when you were a kid/baby. However, if you haven’t noticed, right now there is a global pandemic going on. People, at least some 
, are trying to stop it. The supply of vaccine will be limited for a year maybe, and the focus will be to use the vaccine where it helps the most.
Besides, from what I have heard and seen, people in the US go to Canada these days to get the drugs they need. Better availability and cheaper.
Peter wrote:
We could do a EuroGA group vaccination discount
Nice idea. Could do a “fly-in to get a jab” I’m willing and able to vaccinate people once we get a hold of the vaccine…
LeSving wrote:
The supply of vaccine will be limited for a year maybe, and the focus will be to use the vaccine where it helps the most.
As with pretty much anything, if you have money you will be able to buy a vaccine if you want it.
Presumably Germany bought up most of the Biontech one, as it is manufactured locally there And that seems to be the best one right now.
It would be a two-part fly-in because you need two doses
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I will not spend one cent anymore on people who are willing to murder a significant number of people and to destroy society further just by insisting on their share of cash over this winter season.
Steady on old chap…
I have a pet annoyance at the moment.
From day one the Government in the UK spoke about x million does of the vaccine.
Today the Government, the press, even the BBC use the same language.
It is possible in the early days the Government didnt know all the vaccines would require two injections. They certainly do now.
To me it is misleading, in fact almost misrepresentation, to say we have 20 million does, or whatever it is, as I am sure many people think great that is 20 million people that will be vaccinated.
Of course, as we know, it is half that numner.
To me it is the most woderful manipulation of the numbers.
We should be saying we have purchased 10 million courses of the vaccine.
Short question:
If you were a government planning to distribute a free vaccine would you choose:
Especially if the 90% vaccine will be worse than that in real life because of human error messing up the -70° distribution system. And it’s much more expensive.
On the other hand, if it were providing for medics working in a Covid ward, I would expect a different choice. But even then, 60% only becomes ‘rubbish’ when something better is available :-)
skydriller wrote:
As with pretty much anything, if you have money you will be able to buy a vaccine if you want it.
Yes, money will get you just about anything medical, one way or the other, but that is not the point. MS treatment for instance. It can be treated pretty well with stem cell therapy, but the treatment is very high risk (the risk is death, and with a pretty high risk of doing just that), and the cost is high. In Norway, the national health program and facilities do not do stem cell therapy, nor is it covered if done elsewhere. The reason is the cost/risk does not add up (or so they say). In Norway, the state will cover medical treatment only. My wife’s drugs cost about €15-20k each year. Those drugs keep the illness in steady state. You will not get worse (except side effects), but you will not get better either. Stem cell therapy will indeed get you better, in some cases the illness is gone for ever, but in other cases you can die, or the illness comes back within 1-2 years.
Lots of people still do stem cell therapy. I’m not sure if it can be done at private clinics in Norway, usually people go to Russia to do it. It can be done in Sweden at €100k and in Russia at €50k. In Russia it is the standard treatment AFAIK, at least for some cases, and they are pretty good at it.
The situation is rather odd. €15-20k in drugs adds up quickly over the years, and it doesn’t make you better, it only prevents you from getting worse. €50-100k is on average much less over the years than drugs, and can make you 100% well (but with a substantial risk). So we have sunshine stories of people having “got their lives back”. We have horror stories of people who have died (not in Russia AFAIK, but other places such as India and Mexico). Then we have “the establishment” of national health care saying the only good and safe treatment is the drugs they prescribe, and going to Russia for stem cell therapy is well, Russian roulette
In this case i can understand the reasons why people will pay 50k to go to Russia despite the risks. I can also understand the stand of the national health care. My wife “trust” the national health care 100%, so no trip to Russia for us
With the corona virus it’s different. It’s the pandemic we should focus on. I’m positively sure that it is possible already today to go to Russia to get a vaccine for let’s say 5-10k, 100% legit. You probably can do that some places in Europe as well, but I’m not so sure it will be 100% legit , not within the next 6-12 months.
This is OT for coronavirus but you can stabilise or even revert MS by eating “differently” – example. A friend of ours here has done exactly that. The chief challenge is that people like to eat what they used to eat, and then it doesn’t work. And you can’t get gold standard evidence because you can’t do a blind control group study with diet, there’s no money in big trials either so they are mostly small, lots of people drop out because they want to eat what they used to eat, so sceptics will always say there’s no evidence and carry on with their meat and milk Some ideas.
If you were a government planning to distribute a free vaccine would you choose:
A traditional vaccine that is 60% effective, which you hope 60% of the population will take.
A novel vaccine that is 90% effective, which you fear less than 40% of the population will take because ‘Bill Gates has hidden something inside the GM nanoparticles’.
The answer must depend on one’s lifestyle. Justine and I have been pretty well isolating since March and we are very unlikely to infect somebody – even if we caught it which is very unlikely. So the driver behind getting vaccinated would be to enable airline flights to Greek islands, and to ski And a 60% effective vaccine is pretty well useless for that. It’s the difference between 1 person sitting next to you on the airliner having the pox, or 2 people next to you having it.
But from the public policy POV a 60% vaccine is a lot better than nothing. Especially if you can get it now and get it cheap and it doesn’t need -80C storage.
The anti vaxx / Bill Gates / 5G position is just totally bizzare and exactly as credible as the moon landings having been faked. I predict it will evaporate down to perhaps 5-10% once the airlines start doing the right thing and like Quantas will require a vaccination certificate, or a £120 cv19 test.
