Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

localizer

Colonel
Registered Member
Your analysis is not accurate.

If Moderna and Pfizer had developed adenovirus based vaccines, they would be competing with the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Chinese vaccines.

The Oxford/Astrazeneca adenovirus vaccine is being sold AT COST with ZERO profit. The touted figure is $3-$4 per dose.
The Chinese adenovirus is also likely to be low cost.

So there's no profit to be had with competing head to head with these low-cost vaccines based on existing proven tech.

But if Moderna and Pfizer have a fancy new mRNA vaccine, they can market it as a revolutionary technology and charge more.

Figures of $20, $32, $37 per dose has been mentioned, which is many times more expensive (and presumably profitable) than the Adenovirus vaccines.

For that sort of profit, it's worth going with a riskier vaccine, particularly since governments have already said the companies are not liable for long-term side effects.


Even at $40/dose, total cost is $40 billion/billion people.

Considering the world suffered $trillions in damages, I think it's worth it.

Chinese people were rushing to get Sinovac.
 

vesicles

Colonel
Your analysis is not accurate.

If Moderna and Pfizer had developed adenovirus based vaccines, they would be competing with the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Chinese vaccines.

The Oxford/Astrazeneca adenovirus vaccine is being sold AT COST with ZERO profit. The touted figure is $3-$4 per dose.
The Chinese adenovirus is also likely to be low cost.

So there's no profit to be had with competing head to head with these low-cost vaccines based on existing proven tech.

But if Moderna and Pfizer have a fancy new mRNA vaccine, they can market it as a revolutionary technology and charge more.

Figures of $20, $32, $37 per dose has been mentioned, which is many times more expensive (and presumably profitable) than the Adenovirus vaccines.

For that sort of profit, it's worth going with a riskier vaccine, particularly since governments have already said the companies are not liable for long-term side effects.

You are not competing technologies. You are competing final products. You want to roll out your products as fast as you can, and you want your vaccine to be as effective and as safe as you can. Thats the goal. Technology is not a goal. Just because Toyota has a mid level Corolla, it doesn't mean Honda will now only focus on their Accord and take out their Civic so as not to compete with Toyota. And in a case as unpredictable as a vaccine development, when you first start the development, your only hope is to get an effective product out as fast as you can, before everyone else. If you come out late, you will lose no matter how fancy your technology is.

When different companies were talking about deals in May and June, most of them had already finished their initial screening and had their final candidates in hands. That's why you don't see people talk about their initial nasty and tedious screening phases. That's why you only hear about something when they enter animal testing or clinical trials, AFTER they have finished all the massive screening. They can then sugar-coat their candidates, by telling you the kinds of fancy technologies that they have employed. They will tell you that this is all in their plan. they have always wanted it to go this way because of some of their awesome scientific and/or business plans. What they don't tell you is that they simply throw everything in the pot and hope something, if anything, would come out. We do this all the time in our publications. We tell you our ingenious rationale for some experimental design. What we don't tell you is that we have simply tried everything we could think of, and this is the only thing that comes out positive...
 

solarz

Brigadier
These mRNA vaccines just so happened to be the top candidates from their screening. I can also bet my bottom dollar that the Chinese companies also tested mRNA technology heavily in their screening. It's just that, in their hands, the inactivated viral vectors worked the best. Simple as that.

See, this is something I don't understand. How can you have vastly different screening results for the same virus? What are they screening exactly?
 

localizer

Colonel
Registered Member
See, this is something I don't understand. How can you have vastly different screening results for the same virus? What are they screening exactly?


It's the mRNA sequence and the underlying nanoparticle platform for delivery + any associated adjuvants that determines efficacy of mRNA vaccines.
 

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
From the new your post. It's claiming China is pushing the idea that Covid 19 started in Italy.

China suggests Italy may be the birthplace of COVID-19 pandemic

China is using a new study about the early, hidden spread of coronavirus in Italy to cast doubt on the firmly held assumption that the Asian nation was the birthplace of the pandemic, according to reports.

Officials in Beijing are pushing a new study that suggests the contagion may have been spreading in the European nation as early as September — three months before it was confirmed to be spreading in the long-assumed epicenter in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Times of London noted.

Rest of the article:

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supercat

Major
Brazil: First doses of Chinese company's COVID-19 vaccine arrives in Sao Paulo
A Turkish Cargo flight carrying the country's first 120,000 doses of CoronaVac, the coronavirus vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, landed in Sao Paulo on Thursday. The vaccines were transported in seven refrigerated containers that are now stored in an undisclosed warehouse and are part of a batch total of 46 million due to be delivered by January. "This is one of the vaccines that will help millions of Brazilian lives. We are here to receive this first lot of 120,000 doses, 6 million by the end of December, and 46 million by January. We will bring other vaccines also. This vaccine can bring back normality to the country." said Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria. The vaccines are being imported as part of an effort to be ready once the nation's approval authority, Anvisa, approves the vaccines, which could be in either December or January. Turkish Cargo have a wealth of experience carrying medical cargo, as they have already transported over 40,000 tonnes of medical products and equipment this year alone.
 

localizer

Colonel
Registered Member
From the new your post. It's claiming China is pushing the idea that Covid 19 started in Italy.

China suggests Italy may be the birthplace of COVID-19 pandemic

China is using a new study about the early, hidden spread of coronavirus in Italy to cast doubt on the firmly held assumption that the Asian nation was the birthplace of the pandemic, according to reports.

Officials in Beijing are pushing a new study that suggests the contagion may have been spreading in the European nation as early as September — three months before it was confirmed to be spreading in the long-assumed epicenter in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Times of London noted.

Rest of the article:

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Again they're twisting the study and Chinese statements.

Just because the outbreak started somewhere doesn't tell anything about where the virus originated.

It's just like the original situation with the "no evidence human to human transmission". Just because there is no evidence, doesn't mean there isn't, there just wasn't sufficient evidence at the time.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
You are not competing technologies. You are competing final products. You want to roll out your products as fast as you can, and you want your vaccine to be as effective and as safe as you can. Thats the goal.

No, your statement above is not accurate.

If COVID hadn't come about, an mRNA vaccine would have taken some 10 years to be fully validated.

In comparison, previous adenovirus-based vaccines have been used for decades, so we know it is highly unlikely for there to be any long-term complications.

---

But governments have told the vaccine companies that they will not be liable if there are side effects say 10 years down the road.

That has removed the liability risk out of mRNA vaccines which haven't been used before anywhere.
So from a corporate point of view, Pfizer and Moderna don't have to care about potential side effects in 10 years time.

With 400+ million vaccinations now signed, even a small number of adverse reactions in 10 years time would potentially mean millions of lawsuits. That would be a death sentence bankruptcy for Moderna or Pfizer.

If they were really looking at safety first and accept liability for their vaccines in 10 years time, they would have restricted the number of vaccinations to much lower levels. But of course, that means the established adenovirus vaccines will grab most of the market.

So you can see that profit is being prized over safety by Moderna and Pfizer.
 

localizer

Colonel
Registered Member
No, your statement above is not accurate.

If COVID hadn't come about, an mRNA vaccine would have taken some 10 years to be fully validated.

In comparison, previous adenovirus-based vaccines have been used for decades, so we know it is highly unlikely for there to be any long-term complications.

---

But governments have told the vaccine companies that they will not be liable if there are side effects say 10 years down the road.

That has removed the liability risk out of mRNA vaccines which haven't been used before anywhere.
So from a corporate point of view, Pfizer and Moderna don't have to care about potential side effects in 10 years time.

With 400+ million vaccinations now signed, even a small number of adverse reactions in 10 years time would potentially mean millions of lawsuits. That would be a death sentence bankruptcy for Moderna or Pfizer.

If they were really looking at safety first and accept liability for their vaccines in 10 years time, they would have restricted the number of vaccinations to much lower levels. But of course, that means the established adenovirus vaccines will grab most of the market.

So you can see that profit is being prized over safety by Moderna and Pfizer.


I think the risk of negative effects are low for mRNA vaccines as with subunit vaccines.

The biggest issue I can see would be loss of immunity and mutations of the virus itself.

It's really risk-benefit analysis. 1% mortality rate + cost to human life from economic damage is worth it based on the results they've shown so far.



I can think of some crazy ass scenario like the sequence gets integrated into the genome, but even then we have a good grasp of potential risks based on past gene therapy studies.
 
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