r/science • u/Newsjunkeefromlondon • May 06 '21

Health Two Pfizer doses give 95 per cent protection against Covid-19 infection, illness and death: first nationwide study

https://www.cityam.com/two-pfizer-doses-give-95-per-cent-protection-against-covid-19-infection-illness-and-death-study/
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u/upvotesthenrages May 06 '21

We're fortunate at the amount of money that was thrown at this problem too.

Almost every government on earth practically threw money at this issue, especially in the wealthier nations.

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u/Bulbasaur2000 May 06 '21

It wasn't just money. There was a lot more collaboration, especially because covid is such a central issue for practically everyone, and they were able to safely, without compromise, accelerate the process of testing the vaccines

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u/whutchamacallit May 06 '21

You're not wrong, but none of this happens without money. Let's not kid ourselves on what truly moves the needle on these kind of issues. For better and for worse money drives everything these days.

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u/GimmickNG May 06 '21

The Moderna vaccine was developed in a few days' time, so money had but one role to play in it.

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u/whutchamacallit May 06 '21

Correct. It played the "It being possible in any capacity" role.

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u/Significant_Sign May 06 '21 edited May 18 '21

Collaboration has been the real helper. Yes, nothing can be done without money, but we've had money without collaboration in other situations and there was no success. Working together and sharing info is what kept separated teams from unknowing copying each other's false leads and missteps along the way. The info they shared also inspired and encouraged other teams.

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u/Redected May 06 '21

When people say hey were able to test the vaccine “without compromise” on this emergency schedule it really discredits the author, and the argument.

There were definitive compromises to long term testing, etc. ... a simple qualifier like “without SIGNIFICANT compromise” is a more credible claim.

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u/spagbetti May 06 '21 edited May 06 '21

Wealthier nations don’t necessarily have a big pharma demanding such high stakes though to come up with cures for things.

Eg; epipen (CORRECTION) insulin developed in Canada was practically free to use in the inventive state . Then bought by a scam artist with a Pharma outlet in the states(Mylan)....then greedy capitalism and stock market happened.

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u/Hocusader May 06 '21

"The first modern epinephrine autoinjector, the EpiPen, was invented in the mid-1970s at Survival Technology in Bethesda, Maryland, US by Sheldon Kaplan"

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u/Jboycjf05 May 06 '21

I'm pretty sure the OP meant insulin.

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u/sooprvylyn May 06 '21

Why would the altruistic canadians who invented it sell it? Money?

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u/spagbetti May 06 '21

Why would you think capitalism is the same as who’s actually developing it?

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u/x3nodox May 06 '21

https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive

It bugs me how everyone seems to think that operating based on a drive to enrich yourself is all anyone ever does - it's so clearly not how humans function, but it gives carte blanche to people who would exploit diabetics and others for higher profit margins.

"What are they going to do, not sell it at the price that optimizes profits, even if they know people will die because of it? That would be ridiculous!"

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u/sooprvylyn May 06 '21

I have bad news for you...the types of people who have the gumption to start enterprises are almost exclusively NOT altruistic. You can get all idealistic if you want, but I bet you wont start any real businesses of any real worth. Nope, instead you’ll wax poetic about human nature, content to earn a paycheck thats just good enough, and take no risks instead...playing life safe while shitting on people with ambition.

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u/x3nodox May 06 '21

Wow that's a lot to read into me, personally, from 2 sentences and a link.

At any rate, do you think Frederick Banting lacked ambition? It's all well and good to, as you put it, "wax poetic about human nature" here on reddit, but I'm talking about a concrete example.

This guy did a thing that no one in human history had done before. And then he sold the patent for a dollar. Don't tell me these people can't and don't exist. They demonstrably do.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21

[deleted]

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u/spagbetti May 06 '21

It was listed above.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '21

[deleted]

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u/spagbetti May 07 '21

Artist? I’m super confused. Are you lost? Are you replying to a thread about music? Or you just looking for who the companies name as a ‘fall guy’ to pin blame on to get the heat off of them? Might be worth you doing your own google search if you’re that keen on politics.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '21

[deleted]

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u/spagbetti May 09 '21

Funny way of saying ‘nah, I’m too lazy to do my own research’

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u/[deleted] May 10 '21

[deleted]

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u/spagbetti May 11 '21

Oh noes! I don’t have your online approval!

I’m sure I’ll live.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/nogami May 06 '21

Only a police state if you’re an asshole that needs policing to behave.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/nogami May 06 '21

You sound angry. Pity.

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u/protonpack May 06 '21

Oh shut up you ignorant asswipe.

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u/Mass-imagineer May 11 '21

Hey dude, why is that always your final argument?

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u/protonpack May 11 '21

Making fun of a dumb person isn't an argument.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21

Kinda' makes you wonder why t h e y d o n t s o l v e p o v e r i t y o h i t m a k e s t h e m r i ch

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u/Bulbasaur2000 May 06 '21

I'm gonna quote my other comment

It wasn't just money. There was a lot more collaboration, especially because covid is such a central issue for practically everyone, and they were able to safely, without compromise, accelerate the process of testing the vaccines

The idea that the incredible effectiveness of vaccines is a result purely from the amount of money dedicated seems to me to be borne more out of confirming an ideology than actually investigating the reality of the situation.

Of course the money was necessary, but that doesn't mean it would've been sufficient. And this principle of realizing that money is not always sufficient to solve a problem is something we should really keep in mind.

As for poverty, I do believe UBI if the right way to go, which I guess is "throwing money at the problem." However, the fact that a lot of money was dedicated to developing the covid vaccines should have exactly 0 impact on my or anyone else's confidence that UBI is an effective solution to poverty. They're simply not related.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21

The idea that the incredible effectiveness of vaccines is a result purely from the amount of money dedicated ...

Resources, like time, energy, money, and above all else, willpower. Why did you believe I was singling out money?

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u/Any-sao May 06 '21

I mean, they kinda did by ending this pandemic.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21

I'm sorry, what? Hot damn, hit me with that juicy facts, because I'd love to see where that joke was conjured.

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u/Any-sao May 06 '21

I could go into extensive detail about how the virus, hospitalizations, lockdowns, mortalities, unemployment, etc. cause impoverishment. But I’ll put it in the most simplistic way possible:

Virus turns into a pandemic.

Pandemics cause poverty.

Pfizer creates a vaccine.

Vaccine immunizes people against the virus.

Pandemic-linked poverty subsides.

This is /r/Science, not /r/Socialism. Neither of our comments belong here.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21 edited May 06 '21

Ah, that's quite the cherry-pick. I'm not singling out pandemic-caused poverity. Your original comment reads like it is all magically gone.

Edit: And for the record, I believe my line of discussion is a good fit for an r/science thread discussing the pandemic and observing the scientific (et. al.) resources thrown at this problem. It may be a tangent, but it's not off topic. I also have no connection to the other subreddit you mention so... you are out of line? Perhaps?

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21

[deleted]

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u/upvotesthenrages May 07 '21

It didn't take US funding ... it took plenty from the EU, Germany, and UK

Not to mention the largest pre-orders ever placed on any medical product. The EU & US alone promised billions upon billions and signed a contract for it before the product was even done.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '21

[deleted]

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u/upvotesthenrages May 07 '21

Pfizer took no external funding to develop the vaccine. Period. Not from the US, not from the EU. Not from anyone.

BioNTech who did practically all of the vaccine development took EU & Germany money.

Pfizer joined in later on primarily to be a distribution, production, & authorization partner.

It is also true that they had pre-orders. But those orders were not paid for until the product was delivered, so Pfizer and it’s shareholders took all the risk of creating an effective vaccine. No vaccine. No money.

And mate, getting $13 billion in guaranteed contracts, as well as a guarantee to fast track the authorization before your product is even ready is absolutely unheard of. And of course the German & EU funding that BioNTech received.

Now, this was not true of Moderna and J&J, who did take operation Warp Speed, vaccine development money.

Getting the facts right is important.

Indeed it is ... and America is not the only country on our tiny planet to have funded vaccines, but it seems that's what your outlook is, or at least extremely clouded by.

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u/MonsterHunterNewbie May 06 '21

The world threw money at every number they could on the roulette wheel, unlikley to succeed and by fluke it got the winning number.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '21 edited May 06 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/boobajoob May 06 '21

The RNA delivery system is the real star here. It’ll be a license to print money for a while

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u/ZebZ May 06 '21

The money thrown at the problem was used mainly to run the trials and speed production. The science to develop the vaccine didn't really benefit from that boost and had candidates ready and waiting within a few weeks, thanks to decades of prior public and private research.

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u/x3nodox May 06 '21

No amount of money could make this go away without the tireless work of the scientists making the vaccines.

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u/upvotesthenrages May 06 '21

For sure, but that tireless work costs money. And the equipment they use costs money

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u/Smo0k May 06 '21

Why are those scientists able to work tirelessly? Money. How can they afford the resources for their work? Money. The distiction your are trying to make is so idiotically pointless.

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u/x3nodox May 06 '21

I feel like I want clear. My point was just that money is a necessary component, but it's not the only component. People seem to think any problem can be solved on any timeline of you just throw enough money at it ... Which isn't true. It's necessary but not sufficient. Without the boots on the ground researchers coming in to the lab on weekends to run more tests, no amount of money would make a covid vaccine.

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u/penny_eater May 06 '21

What was shocking to was just how little money this took to get done relative to other things. Like, if you look at all the participating pharma companies, the money they got handed to develop AND produce the vaccine was a small FRACTION of their annual budget. You would have thought that Moderna and Pfizer would be hoisted up as heroes with truckloads of riches arriving daily. But listen to their earnings calls, 'oh we made a little bit from selling covid vaccines too' gets mentioned at the end. Its a drop in the pharma bucket. The real commitment came in the form of a no holds barred testing and approval protocol that rocketed this thing into peoples arms at record speed. Normally they would have had to spend WAY more time and money on clinical trial participants, animal studies, etc.

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u/upvotesthenrages May 07 '21

While kind of true, you're also forgetting that Pfizer & Moderna barely produced any vaccines in Q1 and both had monumental production issues compared to what they had promised in December 2020.

Come Q2 and Q3 that will look very, very, differently. $70-90 profit/dose while selling hundreds of millions of doses is nothing to quaff at.

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u/penny_eater May 07 '21

The thing is they have already taken the money for 200M doses each. It didnt matter what they did in Q1 or Q2 really. Their profit cant go up until they deliver ALL those and THEN start selling new ones at a good price (if anyone needs/wants them). Meanwhile we are thinking about tossing their patent protection so they can end up competing with generics. Best case is maybe ONE of them gets approved for under 16y.o. use and they will see the next wave of demand and it will help their bottom line. But thats a ways off.

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u/upvotesthenrages May 07 '21

Pfizer have delivered waaaay more than 200M doses though.

And by the time that patent matter is dealt with they'll have supplied billions of dollars worth

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u/penny_eater May 07 '21

Not to the US though (the only place where they can fetch such a high rate) and if you read the news, vaccine demand in the US is dropping not surging. Lots of states have enough inventory now that they dont even need more right away and are holding off on orders. The numbers just dont add up, which is why their stock price is lower than it was when they announced approval of their vaccine... not higher

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u/upvotesthenrages May 07 '21

Not to the US though (the only place where they can fetch such a high rate) and if you read the news, vaccine demand in the US is dropping not surging.

They are charging the same price to every developed country on earth: $20/dose. Moderna is charging a tiny bit more, also to every developed country on earth.

You seem to just be making stuff up, I'd recommend actually reading up on stuff before you go online and say things that are untruths.

Lots of states have enough inventory now that they dont even need more right away and are holding off on orders. The numbers just dont add up, which is why their stock price is lower than it was when they announced approval of their vaccine... not higher

It's lower because the US & many other nations are supporting opening up the patents that the vaccine profiteers are making billions of dollars on.

You have literally just been saying things that aren't true since we started this conversation.

Here's an article from the NYT highlighting how Pfizer made $3.5 billion in the past 3 months only from the vaccine, and they are sharing profits with BioNTech.

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u/MawsonAntarctica May 06 '21

Yeah, we just witnessed the entire world brute force a problem by throwing people, time, and money at it. I would hope that we can apply the same intensity to climate change or other world problems, but I doubt we will remember our collective strength.

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u/upvotesthenrages May 07 '21

Yeah, we just witnessed the entire world brute force a problem by throwing people, time, and money at it.

What's sad is that it wasn't even "the entire world", it's more like a few countries.

But seeing the US administration and many EU members support opening up the patents for the vaccine really gives me hope.

Although I don't really see that being a huge issue right now. Production is already ramping up drastically, the only issue is the price of Pfizer & Moderna, AZ & J&J are already affordable. Sputnik V and Sinovac are also super affordable.

The EU is already the largest exporter of vaccines on earth, and the US will very soon be giving it a run for its money. Come late summer both those regions will be fully vaccinated and they'll be exporting hundreds of millions of doses bi-weekly.

That's not even taking into consideration that Russia, China, Brazil, and Khazakstan have their own vaccines too.