Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/09/pfizer-covid-vaccine-90-effective.html
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Trump tweeting about how this news was fraudulently held back until after the election, to sabotage his campaign, in 3…2…1…
What a loser!**
** Now obligatory in every post about him?
Edited to remove question mark, as requested further down.
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Not allowing myself too much hope yet but can we read next that Al Johnson has resigned and the UK is applying to rejoin the EU?
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scha-wing
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I was thinking exactly the same thing.
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Don Jr. already did. Trump is apparently sitting on a toilet too sad to tweet right now.
EDIT: I stand corrected, he’s in the middle of taking full credit for the vaccine AND the stock market upswing, despite having nothing to do with either. Good to see he’s feeling less blue today.
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Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development emphasized to The New York Times that the company did not take federal money to develop the vaccine.
BioNTech received a 375 million € grant from the German Federal Agency for Education and Research.
Not that that’s a bad thing, on the contrary, but this isn’t a victory of unfettered capitalism and the private sector.
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Nope. Sounds more like they wanted full control so they could ignore both safety protocols and normal profit margins. Pfizer knows they are sitting on potential world-wide demand for this vaccine, and everyone will pony up for it.
Edit: note, I probably sound a little too alarmist there. Pfizer still using all the protocols they require, but my understanding is the FDA has extra steps for live vaccines that slow things down. By not taking government money, they can avoid those steps and avoid politicizing the vaccine.
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What do you mean, “no”? The vaccine was developed by BioNTech with German federal money and will have to follow German guidelines. Part of the conditions for receiving these grants was to develop a plan for distribution and price structure. They will have to follow that, whatever the other partner in the joint venture says.
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EU waiting for more data before approval
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said the European Union will wait to approve the vaccine until late-stage safety data is collected to ensure the broadest possible acceptance for the vaccine.
“Most important for acceptance is that we make clear from the beginning that we will wait for clinical trials in Phase III before approval,” he said.
Spahn welcomed the promising progress on a coronavirus vaccine, but added that the German government doesn’t want to make any hasty promises and bring something too quickly on the market.
A possible coronavirus vaccine could be ready to go in the first three months of 2021, he said.
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They did not release any actual data other than that from the first 94 trial participants to test positive for covid-19 after the 2nd vaccine injection, the vaccine group was 90% less likely to test positive than the placebo group. That is great, but it is nowhere near the point we need to be for a wide spread release. Lets at least wait until the participants go a couple months after vaccine and see how they are doing. All for the optimism, but this is an extremely preliminary report.
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What are the odds it will be cheaper to fly to Germany or Europe TWICE to get both needed doses of the vaccine than it will be to get it in the US.
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Also worth noting that this vaccine (along with the Moderna candidate vaccine) requires ultracold freezers from manufacture to administration. That will be a problem in many places.
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I’m also wondering how much of a problem it might be just to get people to take the vaccine if it proves to be successful…will fervent anti-maskers refuse?
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Also, this vaccine must be stored at -80c… That’s kinda a big hurdle in distribution, as it requires specialized storage, not just the fridge at the doctor’s office…
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So you’re saying the smart money is buying ultracold freezer manufacturers’ stocks rather than jumping onto the Pfizer train?
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You’re right, more complicated than it initially sounded. Pfizer saying they “took no government funding” was what I focused on, not the other part of who they were working with and what other requirements they would have agreed to.
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YETI jumps into the ultra cold freezer market in 3,2,…
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This actually could be a place where the military logistics assistance would be helpful, but I foresee some sort of “central vaccine depot” system where people have to travel to a probably metropolitan location. Anything that makes it more difficult to access the vaccine is bad.
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