Comment on Covid booster jabs to be approved for sale to UK public
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
...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
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.
merridew@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Well you are free to suspect that.
But I’m not going to put the health of my family on hold pending the (impossible) total eradication of global health inequity.