Generic Virus Thread

[OutByEaster?]

Isn't temperature and storage the issue with these vaccine's? 

Pfizers vaccine needs to be stored at  -70c and that requires specialised storage equipment.

It'll be really difficult to administer this vaccine from, for example, Boots.

 

[Genie]

16 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Isn't temperature and storage the issue with these vaccine's? 

Pfizers vaccine needs to be stored at  -70c and that requires specialised storage equipment.

It'll be really difficult to administer this vaccine from, for example, Boots.

 

The Oxford Uni one can be kept in a normal fridge which is a major advantage.

[darrenm]

17 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Isn't temperature and storage the issue with these vaccine's? 

Pfizers vaccine needs to be stored at  -70c and that requires specialised storage equipment.

It'll be really difficult to administer this vaccine from, for example, Boots.

 

Yeah it's why the Oxford one being confirmed as 'it works' is a major breakthrough because it's just the same as the flu vaccine which they administer to old and vulnerable every winter anyway.

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

The Oxford Uni one can be kept in a normal fridge which is a major advantage.

It's a massive advantage - didn't know that!

So that's the payoff for the 20% drop in effectiveness? The AZ-Oxford one is cheaper and easier to distribute?

 

 

[OutByEaster?]

Why am I immediately thinking that for Ryanair you'll be fine to fly with the AZ-Oxford but British Airways will demand a gold standard vaccination?

I think I may have become overly cynical 

[Genie]

This is pure speculation but I assume that given the time constraints Pfizer decided to go with a deep freeze as it was most likely to work.
Time will tell on that but I wouldn’t be surprised if they later decide that -70 isn’t necessary (when it starts to impact their orders) and chilled, or standard freezer temperature is ok.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Genie

[snowychap]

50 minutes ago, Genie said:

The numbers of obviously obscene but it’s not really comparable. You couldn’t get Boots to do the amount of tests the UK needs every day (without enormous investment).

I don’t doubt lots of money has been wasted but it’s not a case of just scaling up £120 a test.

As Stevo suggests, it's about questioning the numbers when they're just bandied about and the only 'explanation' that is given is that it provides good value.

I don't think it's sufficient to just say 'it's not really comparable' and 'it's not a case of just scaling up £120 a test' (I mean I'm assuming that's the price at Boots not the cost to Boots for a start?) and leave it there.

That there is only the back of a fag packet calculation that one can do as a beginning to the questioning underlines why questions need to be asked - information that might enable the public, the press, analysts, &c. to investigate and hold the Government, its agencies and its mates to account is not easily forthcoming.

Edited November 24, 2020 by snowychap

[Genie]

9 minutes ago, snowychap said:

As Stevo suggests, it's about questioning the numbers when they're just bandied about and the only 'explanation' that is given is that it provides good value.

I don't think it's sufficient to just say 'it's not really comparable' and 'it's not a case of just scaling up £120 a test' (I mean that's the price at Boots not the cost to Boots for a start, isn't it?) and leave it there.

That there is only the back of a fag packet calculation that one can do as a beginning to the questioning underlines why questions need to be asked - information that might enable the public, the press, analysts, &c. to investigate and hold the Government, its agencies and its mates to account is not easily forthcoming.

I’m not suggesting the numbers shouldn’t be looked into but the suggestion from the tweet is an overly simplistic one.

Its like saying Land Rover make a car for £20,000 but sell it for £120,000 = £100,000 profit but not considering the £1b of investment required upfront. If Landrover were only going to make a few hundred of them a year then they wouldn’t need to invest a billion pounds (but the single car price would be higher).

There will be significant costs associated with the quantity of tests needed each and every day that are not comparable to somewhere like boots doing a quick on the spot test a dozen times a day.

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by Genie

[Stevo985]

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

I’m not suggesting the numbers shouldn’t be looked into but the suggestion from the tweet is an overly simplistic one.

Its like saying Land Rover make a car for £20,000 but sell it for £120,000 = £100,000 profit but not considering the £1b of investment required upfront. If Landrover were only going to make a few hundred of them a year then they wouldn’t need to invest a billion pounds (but the single car price would be higher).

There will be significant costs associated with the quantity of tests needed each and every day that are not comparable to somewhere like boots doing a quick on the spot test a dozen times a day.

 

Which, again, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with. Just expressing surprise that those costs are tens of billions of pounds and asking for a breakdown.

[Seat68]

If I am reading this right from December I can attend a gig with 999 strangers but can only see 6 members of my family. 

[Genie]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

Which, again, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with. Just expressing surprise that those costs are tens of billions of pounds and asking for a breakdown.

There wasn’t a request for a breakdown in the original post and Boris didn’t refuse one either.

It certainly would be useful to understand the figures. It would need to be compared to what other similar nations have had to pay for a national track, trace and test system rather than what is available as a one off Covid test from a pharmacy.

[bickster]

44 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Isn't temperature and storage the issue with these vaccine's? 

Pfizers vaccine needs to be stored at  -70c and that requires specialised storage equipment.

It'll be really difficult to administer this vaccine from, for example, Boots.

 

Pfizers Vaccine will survive 2 days after coming out of cold storage (in special cases for transportation) I believe, so the extreme low temperature is important but not as important as the baseline figure. i'm sure I read that somewhere

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

There wasn’t a request for a breakdown in the original post and Boris didn’t refuse one either.

I think it was implied in the tweet from Daniel Knowles.

Either way i don't think anyone was saying it should cost £120 a test because that's what it costs at Boots, just that there's a stark difference between the two numbers.

 

To be honest I'd expect it to cost less than the boots number scaled up because of economies of scale, even with the admittedly huge costs of distributing it to such a large population. 

[bickster]

9 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

If I am reading this right from December I can attend a gig with 999 strangers but can only see 6 members of my family. 

Depends on the tier. Indoor gigs at 50% of capacity up to tier 2. 2000 outdoors in tier 2, 4000 outdoors in tier 1

Vaccine first for me I think

Glasto is f***ed again imo

EDIT: The only way to interpret this is that you'll be paying twice as much for a ticket to a gig. Gigs don't work at 50% of capacity at any decent size venue

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Either way i don't think anyone was saying it should cost £120 a test because that's what it costs at Boots, just that there's a stark difference between the two numbers.

There is also a stark difference between what the costs include.

No doubt plenty of party donors have had their pockets lined, but for me it’s like comparing apples and bananas.

 

[fightoffyour]

9 minutes ago, bickster said:

Depends on the tier. Indoor gigs at 50% of capacity up to tier 2. 2000 outdoors in tier 2, 4000 outdoors in tier 1

Vaccine first for me I think

Glasto is f***ed again imo

EDIT: The only way to interpret this is that you'll be paying twice as much for a ticket to a gig. Gigs don't work at 50% of capacity at any decent size venue

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

I’m not suggesting the numbers shouldn’t be looked into but the suggestion from the tweet is an overly simplistic one.

That's not the suggestion from the tweets, though.

1 hour ago, Genie said:

Its like saying Land Rover make a car for £20,000 but sell it for £120,000 = £100,000 profit but not considering the £1b of investment required upfront.

Actually, even if you took it in the way that you have, i.e. that he's making a direct comparison only between Boots tests and other tests, it wouldn't be like this.

If the analogy were to be extended, it would be like saying that x was going to supply y Land Rovers at perhaps £300k per unit when in the commercial field z supplied them at £120k each which included a mark up for them as retailers which was their profit (over and above the profit that were to go to the wholesalers/developers).

1 hour ago, Genie said:

There will be significant costs associated with the quantity of tests needed each and every day that are not comparable to somewhere like boots doing a quick on the spot test a dozen times a day.

Indeed, there will be. Then again, one might have thought that the purchasing power of a huge order from a nation might bring about the benefit of a reduced unit cost as opposed to that merely of a national chain of pharmacies. Again there may be reasons why that economy of scale won't come in to play - speed of delivery requirement and voplume actually adding to production costs and thus unit costs, for eaxmple.

These are (some of) the questions to be asked so as to justify the initial numbers being granted to the scheme.

Going back to your Land Rover example, though, I think you've firstly got that quite wrong as suggested above and also, again, misread the actual point being raised, which was to use something as a basis for questioning the amount of money (only so far) being put aside.

Edited November 24, 2020 by snowychap

[snowychap]

22 minutes ago, Genie said:

There wasn’t a request for a breakdown in the original post and Boris didn’t refuse one either.

This is just being silly.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

The numbers of obviously obscene but it’s not really comparable. You couldn’t get Boots to do the amount of tests the UK needs every day (without enormous investment).

I don’t doubt lots of money has been wasted but it’s not a case of just scaling up £120 a test.

I also don't understand why he is talking about *the cost of a test* when the figure given is for the *test and trace* system. Obviously the 'tracing' part is a large part of the cost! You don't get call centres full of contact tracers for free.

(That being said, it does seem like a huge sum of money)

[Genie]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

I also don't understand why he is talking about *the cost of a test* when the figure given is for the *test and trace* system. Obviously the 'tracing' part is a large part of the cost! You don't get call centres full of contact tracers for free.

(That being said, it does seem like a huge sum of money)

Nailed it. It’s 2 vastly different products.

Let’s let boots do all the nations testing them as it’ll be much cheaper?

Well they can’t manage that many people, and they’ll need appointments, and they’ll need extra staff, and they need special designated areas in the stores, and we can’t have thousands of ill people walking around shops and shopping centres, and what about people that can’t get to the shop? What about those in hospitals and care homes? What about health workers? There’s many, many reasons why you can’t compare posting a box of tests to Boots for a few people a day to buy to a national test scheme... and that’s before you even think about the trace element.

Its a stupid comparison.