Comment on Covid booster jabs to be approved for sale to UK public
merridew@feddit.uk 10 months agoNo, I don’t see that as particularly helpful.
Global annual influenza vaccine manufacturing capacity is around 1.68 billion doses. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10309624/
Pfizer alone can churn out 4 billion COVID doses annually. www.pfizer.com/…/manufacturing-and-distribution
I eat more than the minimum required to live despite others living in poverty, and I use more energy than the minimum despite others living in poverty, and I bet you do too. I’m not going to pretend that refusing to get privately vaccinated against COVID is going to change anything except my risk of serious adverse outcomes from exposure to COVID.
midgephoto@photog.social 10 months ago
@merridew Interesting paper. On COVID I didn't see the 4 billion in there, but I didn't do adding up, either.
I've ignored all the vaccines that are not mRNA for assorted reasons, but they must be potentially useful still.
On Influenza, I think the capacity is greatly more than that, but much of it is potential and/or used for other purposes. Given a 1919-like strain we could ramp it up rapidly.
merridew@feddit.uk 10 months ago
It’s under this heading:
How is the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine being distributed?
Pfizer has activated its extensive U.S. and European manufacturing network, including thousands of highly skilled U.S. workers in multiple states and localities, to prepare to produce the COVID-19 vaccine. We currently have the capacity to produce 4 billion doses annually, pending demand.
Influenza they reckon could be scaled up to between 6-8 billion annually, if needed.
midgephoto@photog.social 10 months ago
@merridew sounds fair. Potential, easily available.
Someone might chip in at this point, noting the suggested rate, to ask if we can think of anything else to spend G£4 on that might be more useful.
And most of us would point to some sort of crossover, applying some resources to this and some to (those) other things.
And then there are the loonies, quacks, and horrors with their views, but enough of them.
I suspect ...
midgephoto@photog.social 10 months ago
@merridew
... suspect we are under-immjnising; boosting here, and our interests would be better served by assisting more distant neighbours more.
midgephoto@photog.social 10 months ago
@merridew
...There are many things we could do, many of which are good or at least not bad, and deciding how much of each we do is a strange business.
I think resource allocation and deployment could be done better, but I don't have ambitions as planetary overlord or whatever.
A while after I was born there were 4 billion of us*, and soon there will be 9 billion. Some things we should be able to do much more of and better, some we do, and some things we may need to share more widely.
* ish