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[Jopax]

A study by the US research company Gallup shows that based on the 117 countries surveyed, only 68% of the world's adult population is willing to be vaccinated, if the vaccin is free, that is.

The lowest willingness to be vaccinated is in Europe, with an average of 53%, albeit there are huge differences between eastern and western Europe. In the Balkan countries, the willingness is lowest in the whole world, at a mere 35%.
Northern America also scores pretty low, with 59%.

In Asia, most of the population show willingness to be vaccinated, at 76%.

Virologist estimate that for vaccination to provide effective group immunity, 70-90% of the world needs to be vaccinated, so those low numbers are a real problem.



I guess, to save us from corona, we should start bombing Serbia and Bosnia again, for starters. Perhaps a few Trumpist states as well. I'm sure we can get the UN to label it as a 'humanitarian mission'.

I feel compelled to defend the region somewhat. It's not all antivaxxer idiots (although there is a certain amount of those present), more a combination of several factors. There are two that I think are the biggest ones at least for my neck of the woods.
First off, is that we've had it fairly good here and are doing pretty ok right now in terms of deaths and hospitalizations (we're down to double digits of folks in hospital beds) so people aren't taking it as seriously as they probably should [combined with a ton of folks catching the plague and reporting that it's bad but not as much as everyone has been saying it is (at least those who lived)].
Second is the complete and utter lack of trust in the governing bodies to not fuck it up due to greed and incompetence, as we have a very very long history of both fucking with the common folk and them just having to deal with it. We've already had several scandals involving both overpaying for apparently shitty respirators that may or may not kill people and massive corruption when it comes to the selection process for the companies that would be allowed to import and handle the vaccines, combine that with the ongoing reporting on the failings of various vaccines around the world and you can pretty easily see how someone can figure they're safer not getting it because chances are it'll be fucked in one way or another.

But I do agree in principle, bomb the Balkans, it's generally better that way for everyone involved :V

[martinuzz]

In more hopeful news:

Scientists from Amsterdam have solved the riddle that baffles doctors worldwide: What is it that makes the situation of many corona patients suddenly worsen so horribly that they need hospitalization, and ICU, even while the virus count in their body is already decreasing.

It's divergent antibodies.

The research, whcih has been ongoing for a year, has shown that those patients who suddenly worsen start making antibodies with a divergent shape, which in turn triggers a cascade of immune cells going haywire in the lungs, resulting in an extreme inflammatory response that punctures the blood vessels in the lungs, filling them with fluid and proteins, and clotting the punctured vessels with blood platelets.

They also found a promising (existing) medication, cooperating with a US pharma company, that is now being tested in 40 foreign hospitals. (fostamatinib)
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04629703?term=fostamatinib&cond=Covid19&draw=2&rank=2

If it is as effective as preliminary results show (https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/rigel-fostamatinib-primary-endpoint/), this will really reduce the number of people that need hospitalization from Covid, and maybe even reduce Covid from 'global pandemic panic everybody hide' to 'take this pill, you'll be fine'.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/amsterdamse-wetenschappers-kraken-coronamysterie-waarom-de-ene-patient-zieker-wordt-dan-de-ander~b06e2d01/

https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/05/10/scitranslmed.abf8654

So yeah, very hopeful news.

The expected costs of the medication are between 13 thousand and 20 thousand euros per patient, but that could very well drop if the medication goes from 'used to treat a rare auto-immune disorder' to 'the whole world needs this'

[dragdeler]

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[McTraveller]

Interesting, I was wondering how long it would take before they figured out the detailed pathology. We are quite fortunate to live in a world with such tech.

In anti-vax conversation: I'm amazed / puzzled by the cognitive dissonance that I experience even in some of my extended family.  A conversation basically went like this: "Why do we have to wear masks? Our relative worked at a place where they are lax about masks, he got COVID and is in the hopstial on a vent dying, why did they wait so long to treat him?  But I don't want one of the current vaccinations, my doctor isn't getting them and is waiting for the one that will be released soon, because nobody knows what the long term effects of the RNA stuff is.  Oh and I don't know why they are freaking out anyway, hardly anyone is dying from this. Why do they think it's so bad"?

  

[dragdeler]

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[martinuzz]

I have no issues picturing a world where all efforts on vaccination are dropped once there is a remedy, letting a flue like virus roam wild to get 13-20k per infection. First they will mock your mask then they will send you a bill?

Human insistence on acting retarded is very prevalent.

I can imagine though that if this medicine really works to prevent Covid patients from needing ICUs, that it won't take long for either the prices to drop, or the entire world to declare war on the US if the company doesn't drop the patent rights.

EDIT: excuse my agression, but charging that kind of money for a cure to end a world pandemic (or at least temperate it's effect significantly) is a crime against humanity on a near-Hitler level (genocide of the poor), and I would not be against violence to end that.

EDIT: removed rant, got carried away

[dragdeler]

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[Vector]

EDIT: excuse my agression, but charging that kind of money for a cure to end a world pandemic (or at least temperate it's effect significantly) is a crime against humanity on a near-Hitler level (genocide of the poor), and I would not be against violence to end that.

Not as upfront and personal as most things we call genocide, but yes, I hate to say that I agree.

[ChairmanPoo]

Ok: devilīs advocate time: the whole vaccine patent row is just propaganda. Abolishing the patents wont  increase the vaccine supply short term (certainity), itīs an open question if it even would result in huge price reductions down the line (experience with other hi-tec
 biosimilar products suggests nowhere near as much as the average joe expects), opens a huge legal can of worms (certainity), might or might not deincentivize R&D in the future (maybe, maybe not, depending on how well or how badly its handled, and what mechanisms are put in place). Itīs certainly not something that can be simply sorted with a decree.

If any of the sort is attempted it should be with a clear plan about who exactly is going to exploit the revamped IP laws to produce more vaccines, and how the complex legal and political can of worms that is opened will be handled. I dont get the feeling any such plan is in place.

[dragdeler]

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[martinuzz]

A good start would be to remove the patents component from the price calculation for the duration of the pandemic, and to distribute product fairly across the globe based on national population numbers (times vaccination willingness%/100    /s).

This would not matter that much for most of the current vaccin prices, because current vaccin producing pharma companies are actually trying to keep their prices somewhat-reasonable, but it would matter a whole lot for the prices of this new cure we were discussing. Most of it's 12k-30k per pop price is because it's still a new and patented medicine (which has not been developed for covid but for a rare auto-immune disease). It's a simple-to-produce oral pill that doesn't need ice cold storage or special transport

[None]

The question I have, then, is this- what determines which people make the divergent antibodies that triggers the autoimmune reaction to ravage the lungs?

And, I guess, just to clarify my understanding- the vaccine's been so effective because it ensures we make normal antibodies, yes?

[McTraveller]

I would totally support national labs to do basic vaccine research.  This seems like it would be a no-brainer for cost-benefit analysis for the government. I mean the labs could even pay the researchers 2x private rates, because they would presumably save massive amounts in medicare/medicaid cost later.

Why should a few pharma companies benefit from the few "big wins" in medicine, instead of all of society?

(Yes, yes, socialism rants, etc. etc.)

[dragdeler]

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[martinuzz]

The question I have, then, is this- what determines which people make the divergent antibodies that triggers the autoimmune reaction to ravage the lungs?

Still unknown. So either the meds should be given as a precaution to everyone around the 9th day of infection, or at the first onset of rapid worsening

And, I guess, just to clarify my understanding- the vaccine's been so effective because it ensures we make normal antibodies, yes?

Apparently, or luckily so. We don't see hospital ICUs filling up with the vaccinated. We might have dodged a bullet there though, since the deviating antibodies do target the spike protein that the vaccines use too.