The COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Australia has begun

[Pushka]

Wasn’t the Oxford AZ business model based on humanitarian need and profit irrelevant to them?

 

[burmans]

Wasn’t the Oxford AZ business model based on humanitarian need and profit irrelevant to them?

To the extent it made it cheaper maybe!

 

[serfty]

To the extent it made it cheaper maybe!

That is a glib statement and in no way portrays the reality.
AstraZeneca vaccine - was it really worth it? - BBC

"It's appalling the way AstraZeneca has been treated. I wouldn't blame them if they were thoroughly fed up and decided to bow out of the Covid vaccine business."

 

[jonboixxx]

Welcome to AFF.
IMHO many non-flying posts are conjecture.
Or as someone in another threat said: Rexperts.

Some Rexperts definitely become Fluxperts. Position fluid, according to day of week.

 

[jonboixxx]

Yeah, you have made it painfully obvious you don’t like Pfizer but that’s not a good enough excuse for what has happened.

I have dealt with Pfizer as a supplier for many years. I do not have a sense that they are ostensibly a health company as compared to a profit company.

 

[Lynda2475]

so you are directly stating that Pfizer's goal in this particular context is to profit as much as possible from the misery of the COVID pandemic irrespective how many more deaths such action may incur

Lots of hyperbole in that statement, not to mention jumping to conclusions.

I dispute your premise that making a profit from selling an in demand product is causing excess deaths. The price is set by the market because supply is scarce, economics 101. A business that has innovated and developed unique IP are entitled earn a return on it. A good portion of those profits are reinvested in product improvements to deal with variants and new vaccines and treatments for other diseases.

In fact without the potential for profit fewer vaccines (and certainly not Pfizer, or Moderna) would have been developed this fast and far less people would be vaccinated world wide. Novavax is also intending to make a profit.

What about the local business who made huge profits due to people being stuck at home, but still had the gaul to claim job keeper - are you boycotting them? Hope you dont own any apple products as they are made with child labour.

There are lots of vaccine candidates, not all will survive, nor should they all. A new player may come alomg with a better product at anytime, no business is guaranteed. Likewise if buyers dont see value prices will fall. If you dont innovate you get left behind.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I think that is a bit harsh. We knew they could punch out a million doses a week. Locally. No international transits. Which would have been gold. Media got in the way along with poor messaging.

Plus when the decision was made to ramp up AZ its effectiveness was indicating it to be a very good vaccine. Which it still is.

Plus its cold chain requirements were a lot simpler than for Pfizer, and still is. Though the Pfizer cold chain requirements have now been relaxed somewhat which means that it can more readily be disseminated through GP's and even say Pharmacists.

The main problem to me is more that the non-urgent "its not a race" thinking and sentiment has allowed the rollout to dawdle along.

The issue of comparing risk based on not having more significant outbreaks was also deeply flawed and allowed the vaccination program to be stuttered and derailed as it created doubt in many. So here we now sit with some having been waiting for Pfizer, and with cases in hospital and in the ICU.

And not just in numbers, but very much in not addressing that the right arms all got vaccinated early on including the elderly, the disabled and all their care workers.

Even just with the vaccines that we have access to, there really should have been millions more doses already given by now. And a better coverage of the more vulnerable achieved.

 

[burmans]

That is a glib statement and in no way portrays the reality.
AstraZeneca vaccine - was it really worth it? - BBC

I was referring to the original reason, ie the then, what you are referring to is the now of the situation. I agree they have been treated poorly but that doesn’t have anything to do with the original decision making.

 

[burmans]

I have dealt with Pfizer as a supplier for many years. I do not have a sense that they are ostensibly a health company as compared to a profit company.

Not sure of your point. Are you seriously suggesting we shouldn’t have bought anything from Pfizer because they make a profit? That would be cutting off our nose to spite our face given the circumstances of Covid.

Almost all health companies have a profit motive! There are circumstances where I would direct money away from companies as I don’t like the way they do business but I think that would be crazy in this case. Pfizer will save lives and I don’t think people should die for my (or anyone else’s) principles.

 

[drron]

Interesting comment from a former chairperson on ATAGI on the 7.30 report last night.As our supplies were limited at the start anyone not in 1a should have had their second dose delayed as they did in the UK to have as many as possible at least partially vaccinated.The current co-chair pointed out that the original ATAGI advice which still stands is second dose for Pfizer can be from 3 - 6 weeks and 6 - 12 weeks for AZ.

 

[JB expat]

This is unfortunately the likley main reason why they banked so heavily on AZ, penny pinching which has cost us far more now. The cheapest option is rarely the best.

I think the main issue was lack of diversification in terms of procurement. Yes, prob cost driven (and this will end up costing so much over the long term). Anyone who even has a basic understanding of risk mitigation would have advised that putting all your vaccine eggs in one AZ basket was not wise. The lack of appropriate skills by government leadership is astounding.

 

[MooTime]

I think the main issue was lack of diversification in terms of procurement. Yes, prob cost driven (and this will end up costing so much over the long term). Anyone who even has a basic understanding of risk mitigation would have advised that putting all your vaccine eggs in one AZ basket was not wise. The lack of appropriate skills by government leadership is astounding.

Not a bad skill to manufacturer a vaccine yourself in your own country. Lack of skill you say?

I saw a few extra eggs in the basket.

Pfizer we can all see.
Oh look I see a Moderna egg aswell.
oh wait I see a little Novavax agg hiding there in bottom of the basket.

That's 4 vaccine's, rather risk adverse I'd think, but that's only my opinion.

Maybe remove those anti-everything glasses off. There is a little positivity if you really look hard enough.

 

[burmans]

Pfizer - didnt order enough
Moderna - we have none in the country
Novavax - we have none in the country

Last October, former science minister Karen Andrews said the government estimated a “nine-month to 12-month timeframe” before Australia had mRNA “production lines”. Then in April, just after she left industry and became Home Affairs Minister, Ms Andrews said the government was assessing funding for mRNA projects in “the next few weeks”.

But nearly nine months from Ms Andrews’ October pledge, the government hasn’t even assessed applications. In senate estimates we got admissions it could be years before these are operational. With luck in time for the next pandemic.

Maybe you should take off those rose-tinted glasses and stop making excuses for the inexcusable. Easy to make announcements but harder to actually deliver on these.

 

[MooTime]

Pfizer - didnt order enough
Moderna - we have none in the country
Novavax - we have none in the country

Last October, former science minister Karen Andrews said the government estimated a “nine-month to 12-month timeframe” before Australia had mRNA “production lines”. Then in April, just after she left industry and became Home Affairs Minister, Ms Andrews said the government was assessing funding for mRNA projects in “the next few weeks”.

But nearly nine months from Ms Andrews’ October pledge, the government hasn’t even assessed applications. In senate estimates we got admissions it could be years before these are operational. With luck in time for the next pandemic.

Maybe you should take off those rose-tinted glasses and stop making excuses for the inexcusable. Easy to make announcements but harder to actually deliver on these.

I'm not making excuses, just stating facts that Australia has 4 vaccines that are expected to be in use in 2021, refuting your call of all eggs in one basket.
I'm happy to lend you my rose tinted glasses, as whatever your wearing don't seem to work to well.

You really fail to understand that nobody could foresee the AZ blood clotting issue which has severely hampered uptake.
Then again we have 4 vac's in 2021, not bad backup.

Pfizer didnt order enough........oh my, 40Million does, that more than 2 per adult....what you want to give them to under 18yo's who aren't approved for it? or maybe to dogs & cats? geewizz.

you just have no idea what your stating.

 

[JB expat]

Not a bad skill to manufacturer a vaccine yourself in your own country. Lack of skill you say?

I saw a few extra eggs in the basket.

Pfizer we can all see.
Oh look I see a Moderna egg aswell.
oh wait I see a little Novavax agg hiding there in bottom of the basket.

That's 4 vaccine's, rather risk adverse I'd think, but that's only my opinion.

Maybe remove those anti-everything glasses off. There is a little positivity if you really look hard enough.

All you have to do is look at other OECD countries to see how poorly Aus has done

1st - rate of vaccines from first day country started vaccinating - at the bottom

2nd - percentage vaccinated - again at the bottom

something is going on with my screen shots - it's all here: Covid Australia vaccine rollout tracker: total number of people and per cent vaccinated, daily vaccine doses and rate of progress

View attachment 253084

View attachment 253084

Post automatically merged: Jul 15, 2021

here's the second graph - not sure what happened - last post repeated same graph twice

 

[MooTime]

All you have to do is look at other OECD countries to see how poorly Aus has done

1st - rate of vaccines from first day country started vaccinating - at the bottom

2nd - percentage vaccinated - again at the bottomView attachment 253084

View attachment 253084

oh my, we were always going to have a slow uptake cos we were living in a country that had next to no covid, how people can't see this reasoning is beyond anything I've heard before.

It's the most obvious reason ever.
How many ppl just say why would I get a blood clotting vaccine?
Then why should I get vaccine when we don't have covid & borders are closed.

It's glaring yet some can't understand it.

If all you do is look at a graph & nothing behind the reasonings of why the graph may be in that way, well then well I got nothing for ya.

 

[mviy]

When you were more likely to get struck by lightning than catch COVID let alone die from it and consider that still no freedoms are given back to those who are vaccinated, there has been little incentive for people to get vaccinated. After all if you wait for Pfizer once you can get it you could be fully vaccinated in under a month. For those just looking to go on an overseas holiday that kind of a wait is acceptable.

For those looking to reconnect with family ASAP or do urgent business travel there is an incentive to be ready, but we're in the minority.

 

[burmans]

I'm not making excuses, just stating facts that Australia has 4 vaccines that are expected to be in use in 2021, refuting your call of all eggs in one basket.
I'm happy to lend you my rose tinted glasses, as whatever your wearing don't seem to work to well.

You really fail to understand that nobody could foresee the AZ blood clotting issue which has severely hampered uptake.
Then again we have 4 vac's in 2021, not bad backup.

Pfizer didnt order enough........oh my, 40Million does, that more than 2 per adult....what you want to give them to under 18yo's who aren't approved for it? or maybe to dogs & cats? geewizz.

you just have no idea what your stating.

For eggs to be in a basket, they need to be IN the BASKET, not to be a promised we will have in the basket sometime! As has been well recorded the government only ordered 10 million Pfizer originally and it was only when they realised they had stuffed up they rushed out and bought more. But do we actually have those extra 30 million dsoes, ie are they in our basket of drugs to be used at the moment, oh no.

As for decisions on how much Pfizer to order, whether we could predict issues with vaccines, we were in the same position as all of those other countries now doing better than us. And yet they have all managed to rollout vaccine much faster, I wonder why.

Too many here seem to forget at the end of last year the vaccine development progress was on every news show. Politicians spruiking positive thoughts then the medical experts.

There was plenty of diverse opinion but many common threads.

They were all cautiously optimistic but said that vaccines were by no means certain
- some of all may prove not to be effective against the coronavirus
- some or all may have side effects which mean they can't be used and be canned pre-regulatory approval
- some of all may get through trials (limited size) but have side effects discovered in the wild
- some or all may be delivered much slower than expected and/or have regulatory delays

And guess what, aside from the first (thankfully) all have occurred. So I don't hold any truck with those who say we could have predicted some of the problems when plenty did actually do exactly this. Yes, we couldn't predict which side effect a vaccine could have but it certainly was possible to predict that vaccines might have side effects, because as has been repeatedly mentioned recently, most do!

 

[Lynda2475]

If we had over ordered like other countries the AZ issue would not be having such a big impact.

The govt were clear from the start they planned for AZ to be the backbone of the local roll-out so did indeed put way too many eggs in the AZ basket, despite having smaller orders with other candidates.

If we'd ordered 52M (2 doses * 26M people) Pfizer from the get go and 52M AZ we would have been good when the AZ problem arose.

The Moderna order is real (but very late) because its a vaccine in wide usage elsewhere. Novavax is still in trials, not approved for use anywhere and there are not commercial volumes ready to ship to us or anyone else yet.

 

[MooTime]

For eggs to be in a basket, they need to be IN the BASKET, not to be a promised we will have in the basket sometime!

As for decisions on how much Pfizer to order, whether we could predict issues with vaccines, we were in the same position as all of those other countries now doing better than us. And yet they have all managed to rollout vaccine much faster, I wonder why.

well my basket named 2021.

Later in the year the basket will suit your narrative of all vac's must be IN the BASKET.

Other countries vaccinated faster than us because, man oh man, I've been thru this 3 times already.