Malibuflyer wrote:
I’m just saying that in this specific case that Peter (and the article he quoted) referred to the issue is not “India” but late second shot.
You cannot be at all sure of that, not by a long shot (no pun intended). This is not a game of absolutes, but rather one of probabilities. I prefer to examine the big picture rather than what happens in a single care home, because I’m sure one could find a care home in Germany where there were some infections after two jabs.
Current US president now finally demonstrates that he is by no means better than the last one – just perhaps a bit smoother in his user interface. He announced the “great idea” that patents of Covid vaccines should be suspended.
He obviously just “forgot” to say that such a regulation would to a large extend hit Non-Us-Companies as only 1,5 of the US ones have such patents that could be suspended (Moderna and as the 0,5 J&J where the IP actually belongs to Janssen-Cilag which is non US). But we really appreciate that the US president plays the savior of the world by disappropriation of German, UK, etc. companies!
Here’s my counter-offer: Mr. Biden could just seize the profits that US companies generate with let’s say cancer drugs. He can use this money to buy the entire global supply of Covid vaccines – and for the remaining 60 percent of the sum he could buy food and other help for people in poor countries.
The patent debate is largely noise about nothing. Patents are not the liming factor here – manufacturing capability and capacity is. Making these vaccines is a biological process – it is non-trivial and has highly variable yields. It’s like making whisky or growing truffles, but within incredibly tight tolerances. It is not like making widgets in a factory where you can just say “ok, patents cancelled!” and every country starts making as much as they like tomorrow.
To further see how irrelevant it is:
(a) AZ will freely licence on a non-profit basis to anyone capable of making it
(b) India has never respected pharmaceutical patents anyway and just rips everything off whether we like it or not
The effect on BioNTech / Pfizer is hard to predict, one would need to know the exact terms of the deal. BioNTech seems to hold the IP still, but Pfizer evidently has exclusive worldwide rights – and if normal practice is followed then for the life of the patent.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Current US president now finally demonstrates that he is by no means better than the last one – just perhaps a bit smoother in his user interface. He announced the “great idea” that patents of Covid vaccines should be suspended.
Agree. Unfortunately his totally misguided patent suspension (how do you implement that?) is only the tip of the iceberg of his idiocies.
Good news for vaccinated people in Germany, as the Bundesrat and Bundestag decided to suspend large parts of the contact restrictions for them. The new regulation will be effective starting sunday.
Persons who are fully vaccinated for at least 14 days or have had Covid-19 no more than 6 months ago are now no longer counting towards contact restrictions. They also are extempt from PCR test requirements (count as “negative” automatically) and are also extempt from quarantine when returning from abroad, with a few exceptions for so called “variant areas” such as India.
Mask wearing and keeping 1,5 m distance in public places will still apply to vaccinated persons as well though.
See also this Deutsche Welle article
Bad news for us in Moray, Scotland, today 7/5/2021
“Test positivity in Moray is at 3.2 per cent – across Scotland that figure is close to just 1 per cent.”
“The R-rate in Moray is at also 1.8.”
“That means every person in Moray that becomes infected is, on average, passing it on to two other people.”
Some Swiss cantons have started to mass test primary schools and kindergartens with predictable results. In the canton of Basel Land, 10% of the tests were positive. Our canton starts kindergarten next Monday and I suppose results here in the canton of Zurich will be similar if not higher.
By the looks of it, the 3rd wave may be much stronger than the figures published, only that lots of people either are symptomless or have symptoms but run far and off instead of testing, as they want to avoid being locked up. Also people are scared to loose their vaccination dates so they shut up rather than test. Clearly, if one kid per class is positive, the whole class and all parents and siblings plus everyone they had contact with will go in quarantine. That may mean tens of thousands of people.
Just read that the UK will not distinguish between regions and will only classify travel rules per country for now. A significant blow for us here on the Balearics, where we did our very best to keep the incidence as low as possible, and with good results. Pretty disappointing, not only for the many people living off tourism here, but also for the many Brits for whom it is their favorite destination. On the plus side, countries like the Netherlands do look at the regional incidence and probably take into account that the Balearics are islands, so no more quarantine and not even PCR testing when returning.
Yes this is really stupid. I don’t know why but presumably to avoid circumventing the regs by travelling via an island, which is untraceable.
The latest news on AZ blood clots is that on the 2nd dose they are running at 1ppm (0.0001%).
In the meantime, changes in Germany:
Had first AZ this week and have been fine, so was my wife. On advice from some others we pre dosed with paracetamol on the day and that seems to help avoid some of the side effects. It makes sense as that is what the doctors now advise before taking the kids for any vaccinations as well!
