Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak discussion

[sptrawler]

W.A Government brings in mandatory vaccinations by Jan 2022.

COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for FIFO and other resources sector workers

New public health directions make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for FIFO and other resources sector workers from December.

www.wa.gov.au

 

[wayneL]

I've said it before, sometimes I question my life choices, like when someone's mongrel horse fractured my ribs 3 weeks ago.

But overall I'm so thankful I don't have some petty tyrant telling me I have to have a medical procedure to be able to work.

 

[sptrawler]

I've said it before, sometimes I question my life choices, like when someone's mongrel horse fractured my ribs 3 weeks ago.

But overall I'm so thankful I don't have some petty tyrant telling me I have to have a medical procedure to be able to work.

The problem is IMO, where does it end, who draws a line on what is fair and reasonable to be able to force people to do.
By the way second dose on Tuesday, but it was my choice.

 

[macca]

The problem is IMO, where does it end, who draws a line on what is fair and reasonable to be able to force people to do.
By the way second dose on Tuesday, but it was my choice.

What vaccine will it be next year, could be for the common cold I suppose.

Childhood disease, the Mumps had a very low impact on society but the kids have to be jabbed for it now I think

 

[mullokintyre]

If folks want further proof of the greed of Big Pharma, here is another example.
From A Harvard Analysis
Unfortunately, because the text does not copy and paste with format, the table is distorted. What it is saying , is that a 5 day treatment for the drug coats between USD 3.86 and 6.84 to produce.

We assumed a treatment regimen of four 200 mg molnupiravir capsules twice daily for 5 days. Using the weighted mean market price for molnupiravir with the costing algorithm described in the methodology, we estimate that the cost of production for molnupiravir capsules is US$1.74 per unit, or US$17.74 per 5-day regimen. Adding an allowance for 10% profit margin and taxes in India, we arrive at an estimated sustainable generic price of US$1.96 per capsule or US$19.99 per 5-day regimen.

The proprietor pharmaceutical company, Merck, announced on 27 April 2021 that they had entered into non-exclusive voluntary licensing agreements for molnupiravir with five Indian generics manufacturers (Cipla Limited, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Limited, Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited, Hetero Labs Limited, and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited). The US government has already ordered 1.7 million treatment courses, at about $700/patient.7 This price is equal to about 35 times the estimated sustainable generic price using current market prices for the active ingredient (API) observed in our analysis. Assuming optimization of molnupiravir synthesis, and a resulting drop in API cost, the US price would be equal to about 161 times the estimated sustainable generic price.

So merck is charging the feds at arate of 161 times the cost to manufacture the drug.
And to top it off, according to Zero Hedge , the drug was developed not by Merck, but a University and funded by the federal government.

News of the oral 'wonder drug' sent shares of Merck higher last week, as the company says it can deliver 10MM doses by the end of the year.

Clearly, the pill could bring in massive profits to Merck and its partner on the drug, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics - which licensed the drug from Emory University in 2020 and then sold the worldwide rights to the drug to Merck for a sum which has not been disclosed.

Meanwhile, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a division of the Department of Defense, funded development of the drug by Emory University to the tune of $10 million between 2013 and 2015, according to nonprofit group Knowledge Ecology International discovered.

The pill, originally developed using US government funds as a possible treatment for Venezuelan equine encephalitis, cut the risk of hospitalization and death in half in a randomized trial of 775 adults with mild/moderate Covid who were considered at high risk for disease due to comorbidities such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The trial was stopped early so the company could apply for and emergency use authorization (EUA). The drug did not benefit patients who were already hospitalized with severe disease.

Never get between big Pharma and a bucket of money.
Mick

 

[sptrawler]

Looks like Australia is heading toward the top of the table, wit regard vaccinations, should be interesting to see where we sit by Christmas.

The real reason why Australia's vaccination speed is one of the highest in the world

After months spinning its wheels near the start line, Australia is now roaring towards the vaccination levels that will allow a safer re-entry into the world.

www.abc.net.au

From the article:
Of all the nations home to at least 500,000 people, Australia currently ranks 48th on partial vaccination levels, according to the latest data compiled by Our World In Data.

Australia is 56th in the world for full vaccination coverage.



Among the relatively wealthy OECD nations, Australia still ranks near the bottom of the pack.

But the nation is now clambering upwards, with one of the fastest vaccination speeds in the world.

 

[mullokintyre]

Looks like Australia is heading toward the top of the table, wit regard vaccinations, should be interesting to see where we sit by Christmas.

The real reason why Australia's vaccination speed is one of the highest in the world

After months spinning its wheels near the start line, Australia is now roaring towards the vaccination levels that will allow a safer re-entry into the world.

www.abc.net.au

From the article:
Of all the nations home to at least 500,000 people, Australia currently ranks 48th on partial vaccination levels, according to the latest data compiled by Our World In Data.

Australia is 56th in the world for full vaccination coverage.



Among the relatively wealthy OECD nations, Australia still ranks near the bottom of the pack.

But the nation is now clambering upwards, with one of the fastest vaccination speeds in the world.

View attachment 131198

Doers it really matter how fast we are at vaccinating in a given week?
Its one of those metrics that are a bit meaningless.
The only metric that really counts are how many people are vaccinated.
That will be the metric that forces the gestapo governments to let us out.
Mick

 

[sptrawler]

Doers it really matter how fast we are at vaccinating in a given week?
Its one of those metrics that are a bit meaningless.
The only metric that really counts are how many people are vaccinated.
That will be the metric that forces the gestapo governments to let us out.
Mick

Does it matter? Not at all, but in the early part of the programme it was being posted how slow we were, so I thought it best to keep up with the progress for the sake of fairness. Lol

 

[rederob]

Does it matter? Not at all, but in the early part of the programme it was being posted how slow we were, so I thought it best to keep up with the progress for the sake of fairness. Lol

The rate matters because of the National Cabinet agreement on opening up.
Moreover, State inconsistencies will affect vaccine passport arrangements and interstate travel in particular, especially wrt to quarantining.
Perhaps of greater concern is whether States use 70% or 80% (fully vaccinated) as their baselines. That's because the 70% rate will see boundary spillovers and also significantly impact hospital systems.
The timeframe difference is less than a fortnight at current vaccination rates, (and less than a week at Cuba's rate!) and anyone wanting to do the risk/reward calculus needs only look at the UK or Israeli experiences for an idea of what it's like to jump earlier rather than later.

 

[over9k]

If folks want further proof of the greed of Big Pharma, here is another example.
From A Harvard Analysis
Unfortunately, because the text does not copy and paste with format, the table is distorted. What it is saying , is that a 5 day treatment for the drug coats between USD 3.86 and 6.84 to produce.



So merck is charging the feds at arate of 161 times the cost to manufacture the drug.
And to top it off, according to Zero Hedge , the drug was developed not by Merck, but a University and funded by the federal government.


Never get between big Pharma and a bucket of money.
Mick

Irrelevant. Anything like this, anything in engineering, costs nothing to actually produce. It's the R&D costs that have to be covered in which the cost lies.

The pills might be two cents, but the R&D to make the pill could have been two billion.



Come on guys, you're better than this.

 

[mullokintyre]

Irrelevant. Anything like this, anything in engineering, costs nothing to actually produce. It's the R&D costs that have to be covered in which the cost lies.

The pills might be two cents, but the R&D to make the pill could have been two billion.

If you read the second part of the article, it says that the drug was developed by Emory University, so I doubt there were billions spent by Merck on R & D.
Mick

 

[over9k]

If you read the second part of the article, it says that the drug was developed by Emory University, so I doubt there were billions spent by Merck on R & D.
Mick

Yes but your post wasn't actually about one isolated incident was it?

"Never get between big pharma and a bucket of money".

You were using it as an example of a bigger picture. Bigger picture, the overwhelming majority of stuff like this has a ridiculous sum of R&D costs that need to be accounted for.

If you want to attack them for this one isolated incident I actually agree with you 100%, it's disgraceful, but that's not what you were doing.

 

[mullokintyre]

If you want to attack them for this one isolated incident I actually agree with you 100%, it's disgraceful, but that's not what you were doing.

If you go back a bit on this thread you will its the second example I have put of big Pharma screwing the public in pushing for booster shots.
And there are plenty of examples of others who have suggested exactly what I said.
There is also Big Pharma profits from USA and USA Today
And hers one from the UK Morning Star
And its not a recent phenomenon. Heres an older one from Huff Post
But the real killer is Democrat Katie Porter doing a brilliant job of demolishing the lie about spending on R & D in a 5 year period from 2013 to 2018.
The R& D component was less than what they spent on advertising.
And all of the combined spending in that 5 year period was dwarfed by the 50 Billion spent on Dividends and share buybacks.
Well worth a look IMHO.

This was after she had harpooned the CEO of Calgene after he upped the prices of cancer drugs.
Mick

 

[mullokintyre]

Yes but your post wasn't actually about one isolated incident was it?

"Never get between big pharma and a bucket of money".

You were using it as an example of a bigger picture. Bigger picture, the overwhelming majority of stuff like this has a ridiculous sum of R&D costs that need to be accounted for.

If you want to attack them for this one isolated incident I actually agree with you 100%, it's disgraceful, but that's not what you were doing.

Now that I am on a roll, have a look at this article from From Huffington Post

The lawmaker delivered one of her textbook takedowns during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing Wednesday with current and former executives of three major drug companies. The committee is investigating the high cost of prescription drugs in the U.S.

Porter began her grilling of Mark Alles, the CEO of Celgene until 2019, by asking about the company’s repeated price hikes of the cancer drug Revlimid. It now costs $763 per pill ― up from $215 in 2005.
Alles explained that the drug was approved for new indications, but Porter stopped him to ask if that had changed the pill in any way.
“Did the drug start to work faster?” she asked. “Were there fewer side effects? How did you change the formula or production of Revlimid to justify this price increase?”
Alles said the manufacturing of the pill remained the same.

Porter then outlined how the average senior citizen in her district could not even afford one pill:

Next, she drew a new figure: $13 million ― referring to Alles’ salary as Celgene CEO in 2017.
“It’s 200 times the average American’s income and 360 times what the average senior gets on Social Security,” Porter said.
She then made some calculations about Alles’ bonus, which she reminded him was linked to the company’s yearly earnings.

“You personally received half a million dollars just by tripling the price of Revlimid,” she said. “So, to recap here, the drug didn’t get any better, the cancer patients didn’t get any better, you just got better at making money. You just refined your skills at price gouging.”

Its kinda hard to make a case for feeling sorry for Pharma Co's.
Mick

 

[over9k]

I am not going to even begin to read anything from the huffington post. I'd sooner have my eyes gouged out. It'd be less painful.

 

[wayneL]

I'd sooner have my eyes gouged out. It'd be less painful.

True of any of the legacy media.

I occasionally read some sources, with safety glasses on, to avoid the self harm of ocular auto-reflexivness.

 

[mullokintyre]

I am not going to even begin to read anything from the huffington post. I'd sooner have my eyes gouged out. It'd be less painful.

I posted a little while back how we all have a tendency to dismiss sources of "news" because it does not fit our own personal bias.
I will admit I do it myself.
But sometimes you actually have to read (or in this case watch) the content.
In the case above, there is a Huff Post twiiter feed that contains a video of the house drugs commission.
It would not matter who posted it, it still contains some thoroughly damning footage.
Its similar to the footage of the Victoria Police pepper spraying a 70 year old woman lying on her back.
There is no justification under any circumstances, regardless of the context, the provocation, the bad hair day.
Mick

 

[mullokintyre]

I occasionally read some sources, with safety glasses on, to avoid the self harm of ocular auto-reflexivness.

Occular Auto-reflexiveness!
Pure Gold.
Mick

 

[over9k]

I posted a little while back how we all have a tendency to dismiss sources of "news" because it does not fit our own personal bias.
I will admit I do it myself.
But sometimes you actually have to read (or in this case watch) the content.
In the case above, there is a Huff Post twiiter feed that contains a video of the house drugs commission.
It would not matter who posted it, it still contains some thoroughly damning footage.
Its similar to the footage of the Victoria Police pepper spraying a 70 year old woman lying on her back.
There is no justification under any circumstances, regardless of the context, the provocation, the bad hair day.
Mick

"If you won't read lies and drivel it's because you're biased"

Too right I'm biased, I'm biased against utter bullsh!t.

 

[mullokintyre]

"If you won't read lies and drivel it's because you're biased"

Too right I'm biased, I'm biased against utter bullsh!t.

Thats a little bit slippery.
You put the words
"If you won't read lies and drivel it's because you're biased"
in inverted commas , as if i had said those words.
I obviously did not.
If you are quoting someone, you make sure its obvious as to who you are quoting.
As for the utter bull**** part, what part of the data I provided is utter bull****?
Did you actually look at the twitter Video put up by the huffpost, or just dismiss it out of hand?
Mick