It is realpolitik, they are not expecting UK (or any nation) to do it other than some symbolic gesture (better than nothing).
But WHO have world in the name, so at least they need to try.
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WHO urges Britain to pause Covid jabs after treating most vulnerable. “We’re asking all countries in those circumstances to do that.”
- Thread starter It’s Time To Go
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It is realpolitik, they are not expecting UK (or any nation) to do it other than some symbolic gesture (better than nothing).
But WHO have world in the name, so at least they need to try.
If Covid showed anything then that humans rather let countless other people die than having to endure minor incoveniences. So no, this will not happen. Especially not in the UK.
The thing is the WHO's suggestion of having a semi vaccinated population mixing with a population where case numbers are very high is precisely the conditions most likely to generate a variant that the vaccines don't work against. If, and only if, case numbers in the UK can be kept low then vaccinating less of the population would be tolerable imo.
Don't worry, the UK is one of the select few that is worse than the US
Anyway, the WHO should have been working on this. Also, equitable vaccines come with 1 shot easily stored vaccines, not this current crop anyway.
Yes by the time countries were starting to ban travel from China it was already too late because they all waited too long partly due to the WHO talking about how great of a job China was doing containing COVID and the WHO recommending against travel bans. Maybe nations would have been more willing to do quicker and wider travel bans if they had the WHO backing them.
People will also stop listening if you are shown to be completely ineffective during the worst pandemic in 100 years.
I mean this was clearly more dangerous then H1N1 from the onset just from the idea of having to develop a brand new type of vaccine instead of reformulating a flu vaccine.
The virus was out of China already well before people even started talking about shutting down travel with China. And most of the travel after was residents returning to their countries.
And you are benefiting of a year of Knowledge that at the time no one at the time had.
Let's put in this way, do you think after H1N1 was out everyone should have closed border with north america?
To be safe right?
Won't happen. Can't happen - would mean endless lock down and economic ruin for any country that tried it. Instead, I can see Western Europe, US etc reaching "herd immunity" vaccination levels by the end of the year, lifting local lock downs and keeping travel restrictions in place (immunity passport anyone?) with any country that hasn't done the same.
It will take years to roll out a vaccine to everyone world wide - especially if annual boosters are needed or variants emerge that trigger a need for a new vaccine. You only have to look at how long it's taken to eliminate Polio through vaccination and that disease is still present in some countries.
WHO is being optimistic thinking it will take until 2023 -2024 to distribute vaccines to everyone (Source : The Guardian live news blog, 16:50hrs story)
It will take years to roll out a vaccine to everyone world wide - especially if annual boosters are needed or variants emerge that trigger a need for a new vaccine. You only have to look at how long it's taken to eliminate Polio through vaccination and that disease is still present in some countries.
WHO is being optimistic thinking it will take until 2023 -2024 to distribute vaccines to everyone (Source : The Guardian live news blog, 16:50hrs story)
As the full article mentions, not pushing for a worldwide distribution of vaccines will also have a massive impact on the economy of developed nations. Even a smaller pause greatly helps in getting people at risk vaccinated.
The virus definitely spread farther and faster every day travel was allowed. Delaying it by days or weeks at the beginning has a huge effect over the course of the pandemic. And like I said wider travel bans/restrictions should have been implemented and maybe could have with the WHO's blessing.
H1N1 is a known virus so no. We already have flu vaccines (obviously not as effective when its a different strain but some effectiveness), flu tests, etc.. but most importantly we know how the flu spreads. We had no idea how this virus spreads which is why there was fights for months over droplet/airborne/fomite/aersolized precautions, masks/no masks and asymptomatic/presymptomatic spread.
Even if that was a reasonable time frame, that's two or three more years of national lockdowns. There would be riots on the streets if Boris Johnson came out tomorrow and said sorry but the lockdown is being extended until 2024.
The focus just on death ignores long-Covid's impact on the population. For example ;If we look at the vaccination priority groups, we can see that the vast majority of deaths come from people who fall under priority groups 1-9 - the number of covid deaths for people outside of these priority groups is small. Covid deaths should fall off dramatically once these groups are vaccinated, which should hopefully happen soon. More lives would be saved overall by vaccinating at risk people abroad instead of vaccinating people inside the UK who fall outside of priority groups 1-9.
Source - https://c8930375-0dbb-4319-ae2f-025...d/ab45f7_a40832c6069842e6af33fcf2b06611bf.pdf
I, personally, agree with the WHO, but I think it's unlikely that we, the UK, and other 'rich' countries will ship vaccines abroad for a few reasons -
1 - People who are low risk are scared shitless over covid and are clamouring for vaccines. Only a small % will be willing to give up a vaccine, even if it means more people will die as a result.
2 - Because of this, it's politically untenable for any government to ship vaccines abroad before their country is vaccinated. Their approval ratings would fall of a cliff immediately.
3 - There is an argument that young people won't go back to normal until they get vaccinated, even if the risks from covid to them are tiny, which will cause further economic trouble that lead to more deaths.
"Around 65% of people with coronavirus lose their sense of smell and taste and it's estimated that about 10% of those go on to develop a "qualitative olfactory dysfunction", meaning parosmia or a rarer condition, phantosmia, when you smell something that isn't there.
If this is correct, up to 6.5 million of the 100 million who have had Covid-19 worldwide may now be experiencing long-covid parosmia."
This is just one group, impacted by one problem "phantosmia" and ignores others who have other long Covid symptoms.
Source : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-55824567
A shorter period already makes a huge impact and is better than nothing. Even a few months frees up a huge amount of vaccines for those at risk.
So the economy is f**ked if we vaccinate everyone now or if we delay that until later..... but if we don't do it ASAP, people's mental heath etc will be impacted massively if lock downs are extended to 2023-24 as well as impacting massively children's education.
The WHO has a point in that current vaccine distribution is being done by wealth, instead of by need. And that, if you were going to design an idealistic distribution method, you would probably do something close to what the UK is currently doing but on a world wide scale.
However, you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone, especially those in hard hit countries like the UK, that they should wait another couple years to come out of lockdown.
I also don't think that people are wrong for wanting their government to priortize their own country before others as it is literally what they are there to do.
However, you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone, especially those in hard hit countries like the UK, that they should wait another couple years to come out of lockdown.
I also don't think that people are wrong for wanting their government to priortize their own country before others as it is literally what they are there to do.
U.K. vaccine distribution success, in the face of proportionately huge numbers of infections, fatalities and lengthy lockdowns, is down to the crumbling NHS infrastructure and hardworking staff again bailing us out despite the Tories doing everything they can to undermine it on a regular basis. That we have such an effective medical-social infrastructure is a credit to that structure and the continued, constant dedication of U.K. medics and scientists, not the Tories.
Still, I agree there is no chance Boris is going to say 'we're too far ahead, let's stop now.' This is a political win he desperately needs and such clarification from neutral bodies on U.K. success is only going to be used to bolster the case for Brexit that's complete omnishambles is otherwise only being kept off the national agenda because of Covid and press support from the tabloids.
Still, I agree there is no chance Boris is going to say 'we're too far ahead, let's stop now.' This is a political win he desperately needs and such clarification from neutral bodies on U.K. success is only going to be used to bolster the case for Brexit that's complete omnishambles is otherwise only being kept off the national agenda because of Covid and press support from the tabloids.
As I mentioned, even a smaller pause already greatly helps. It also helps the economy. It is difficult to say if the country would need to be in full lockdown without assessing the impact of vaccinating all at risk. Of course it is a very tough ask.
There is already an idealistic distribution method. The Fair Priority Model. Based on that it makes sense that the UK is vaccinating a lot of people, but that should change as soon as the risk groups have been vaccinated.
Their government acts on their peoples interest, people cannot shift responsibility for this on their governments. This is because people want to be prioritzed. If enough people are willing to delay their vaccine, the government is in a very different situation.
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That's not a position I would want to be in...telling your own countrymen you have the means to help your neighbors next door but would rather help the neighbors a few blocks over first.
Surely you don't actually think it's viable for the Working UK population to be reduced to more potential lockdowns like this one until 2023-24 do you and have that be accepted by them ?
It don't work this way you will find particle of the virus flu or covid in all those things. what important is how virulent is, if that dose is enough to start a infection.
Covid is similar to SARS and the measure put in place last year would have stopped it and different strain for COVID-19 have different strain infection rate.
Same for flu, for example
So, by your standard we would have shutdown the world economy during SARS, H1N1 and then MERS and any other unknown pneumonia (that are quite common), it's just not realistic no matter how one would wish the last year did not happen at all. Especially since probably it would have been too late anyway given how interconnected are our world now.
If we disagree that the world can stand this level of precaution... you will not convince me that is possibile and probably the other way either.
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No I don't think that. I would be okay with it, but I definitely think it would not be viable for most of the population. As I keep repeating, even a smaller pause helps. Instead of waiting until 2023-24, wait until the end of the year. See if some restrictions can be lifted if a good amount of people have been vaccinated. Maybe only have a voluntary pause of vaccinations for those that want it.
If vaccinating the world requires the uk to be in any sort of lockdown even until the end of the year, yet ALONE 2023-2024, its not happening.
like at all. A big group of people would be happy to let 2,000 people die a day in their own country if it meant we could go back to restaurants, pubs, clubs, and just meeting family etc right now. The only reason people are even obeying any sort of lockdown is the promise that we will get everyone vaccinated in the next few months and be over and done with this.
its also a unique scenario where the countries most effected bycorona also happen to be those that have the money and influence to get the vsccines first
Well yes, I'm not under any impression that it is realistic all people to give a lot of things for people they do not know. I don't even expect people that would not have their health or income affected to actually give enough of a shit about people they do not know. If the people at risk are vaccinated I kind of already expect people to ignore lockdowns anyway, might as well keep that going for a few months I suppose.
Does not mean it is not the right thing to pause vaccinations or work towards global vaccine equity. If there are enough people choosing to delay their vaccine to be noticable, it can make an impact.
Exactly, the single biggest reason why most people follow the guidelines is because they've being told that when the entire UK adult population have being vaccinated, is when we can get a sense of "normality" within our own lands. Lockdowns like this continuing for years after being told once vaccinated we can "go back to normal", would cause genuine riots.
No head of government in the world would take this kind of decision. It might be an ethical stance, but that head of the government would be kicked out immediately.
What could be done is to have the vaccines shared and produced temporarily by more producers because it's clear that the current production doesn't meet the need quick enough.
What could be done is to have the vaccines shared and produced temporarily by more producers because it's clear that the current production doesn't meet the need quick enough.
Yeah, and I don't think that the people are in the wrong for wanting to be prioritized.
Countries like the UK are basically in a state of emergency right now, and its a completely rational decision by everyone involved, the government and the people, to want to fix the problem locally before helping others.
Nobody is saying they shouldn't. I'm not even doing that. They need to vaccinate their vulnerable people as the UK is in a very bad state.
Then, the ethically right thing to do is to help others. Which means before also vaccining their entire healthy population.
dont get me wrong, vaccinating the whole world is going to be crucial to ending this. However, what i take issue with is what the who is suggesting. Now im not an expert in this, but the reason why we have such a little worldwide supply of vaccines is of course because companies can patent there vaccine and not share it with other companies or allow other production sites to use it.
instead of fighting to decide what is done with the little vaccine vaccine supply worldwide, we should be fighting for the the vaccines to essentially be usable for all countries for free. Not only that but the uk should happily share its distribution bluePrint to the world So that every country in the world has the ability to create there own production plants and distribute themselves.
Basically this.On a worldwide scale, we are basically fighting over scraps to let medical companies get profits.
They need to do more than just vaccinate the vulnerable, some of us haven't worked since last March, are not on furlough, and receiving almost zero financial support and are going into further ruin the longer this goes on.
I think even without patents there would still be the same issue, although it may have been less worse. It also feels like a very silly reason when it is the EU that does not want to consider enforcing the release of vaccine patents. I get that it does not really apply for the UK, but what WHO is saying applies to all EU countries too.
And regardless of the reason of little supply I don't see how that should change the position of the WHO. Why does that mean that vaccines should not always go to those that are more vulnerable? Should the WHO suggest to just let the free market do its thing?
I'm not under any impression that everything is fine and dandy when only the vulnerable are vaccinated. But it will be as bad in many other countries and they will not be able to have a social safety net.
Even then, I really cannot tell what restrictions are needed when the vulnerable have been vaccinated.
I say all us rich folks chip in some big bucks to WHO to build more vaccine manufacturing facilities around the world. It will take time but better than doing nothing and have China and Russia fill a vacuum.
I bet the facilities could be used later for other vaccines.
I bet the facilities could be used later for other vaccines.
No western country is going to give away vaccines until it has covered its own population. You can call Boris a cunt but even your favourite progressive leaders will hoard for their own first.
The best one can hope for is that rich countries then fund vaccines for the third world out of guilt - and to be fair a lot of countries are already donating money to programs like covax.
The best one can hope for is that rich countries then fund vaccines for the third world out of guilt - and to be fair a lot of countries are already donating money to programs like covax.
That depends on how you define vulnerable. UK target is most vulnerable (underlying health problems and over 70) by 15 of this month. But the you have over 60s, ppl with less serious health problems and frontline workers
No, the conservatives don't know what compassion or empathy is.
Came to post something similar.
Pausing a vaccination program when you've got a tiny vaccinated population on a virus that's already shown to mutate quickly can't be a good idea.
Indeed. Not to mention that the AZ vaccine doesn't have the highest efficacy, especially for the older (vulnerable!), so we therefore rely on more of the population to be inoculated for it to be most effective and ultimately slow transmission.
Edit: sorry for the dp
We're also the single biggest donor to the WHO right now. I bet ol' Boris is regretting siding with them and increasing their funding when everyone else decided they were no longer worth listening to and some, like America, even bailed on them. 🤔
This is what I don't get. We have an efficient distribution network set up in the NHS. It's the only thing that's been really effective here and it's moving fairly fast. Surely it's better to let that network play out now it's up and running and able to work quickly, rather than stop and let those we've vaccinated gamble with the comparatively weaker efficacy of the AZ vaccine vs Covid still running riot through the rest of the population. A large part of the layered defence, and why a comparatively low efficacy is still effective, is limited exposure through a planned-to-be-largely-vaccinated population, isn't it?
Nearly 2 thousand deaths a day is a minor inconvenience, TIL
I mean we reached to point to complain that an organisation(for once) will try to stick to the poorer members instead of catering to the biggest donor?🤔
No one really will blame any countries to not share a vaccine until it have the majority of its population inoculated. But the argument had reasons and maybe some symbolic amount will be shared, saving some lives.
Of course its not just UK.
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