Arguments over AZ production feckups and vaccine exports stopped weeks ago. And billions have been poured instead into producing mRNA vaccines not just for europe but for the world. The article is about pursuing AZ in courts, its aim is not to increase supply of AZ vaccine which increasingly people are refusing to accept when they know there are (what may or may not be) better alternatives
Why didn't you read the article I linked? It says:
"The contract makes clear the Commission and EU countries can't sue the drugmaker for a host of issues, most notably if there are 'delays in delivery of the Vaccine under this Agreement.'"
To be honest here in Ireland where majority of vaccinations have been Pfizer people seemed to stop caring about AZ and there is a sizeable chunk of people who are refusing AZ (my own elderly parents and their siblings really scared now and in despair) due to issues recently highlighted (dont shoot messenger, imho risks are small but i can see why some might be hesitant when alternatives are/will be available)
I say the brand damage to AZ due to their own production issues, Oxford due to what seems to be dodgy research trials (still not approved by FDA) and UK where politicians wrapped the vaccine in union jack and hitched it to Brexit bandwagon for jignoistic reasons, means this vaccine is now tainted in peoples eyes with negative associations. Which is a pitty but i see both sides of arguments.
TL.DR a month ago i predicted it be pretty much unusable in europe and thats more or less case. As for AZ if they have broken contracts then yes failure should be punished in courts, but IMNAL! for population at large what matters more is that better vaccines are available faster and this vaccine doesnt lead to further hesitancy.
> UK where politicians wrapped the vaccine in union jack and hitched it to Brexit bandwagon for jignoistic reasons
Something I have learnt from the whole AZ business is how much media bias affects your thought process, even on topics which appear to be reported relatively neutrally.
Here in the UK, the implicit messaging I've picked up from the media is that EU politicians have been briefing against AZ in order to discredit Brexit. One (fairly similar) country over, and you've received entirely the opposite message.
In my opinion, the media and European politicians are responsible for this vaccine skepticism. You reap what you sow.
The politicians banned the vaccine despite there not being scientific evidence to suggest that was a reasonable choice. The media in Europe hyped this up massively.
In the UK, neither of these things happened, and despite there being some degree of skepticism, the vast majority of people are still willing to have the AZ jab.
Supply of AZ is so limited in the EU that the EU can afford to be more conservative with recommendations; it's not like de facto restricting AZ to 60-75 (common in European countries) actually slows down vaccination, because there isn't enough AZ available to vaccinate that age group anyway; even if all the AZ is dedicated to it it some of that cohort end up getting Pfizer.
> To be honest here in Ireland where majority of vaccinations have been Pfizer people seemed to stop caring about AZ
That's the case now that Pfizer supply has been ramped up, but our vaccine program would be far more progressed if AZ had delivered. Ireland was supposed to get about 1 million AZ doses in Q1, 3 million by end of Q2. Actual number delivered so far is more like 300k.
It's split: Hesitation is for sure here, on the other hand plenty people in age ranges its not recommended for here decide to get it anyways. (Here in Germany its not recommended for <60, but not forbidden to be used)
I'm reading this but the "non-recommended" part is kinda tricky.
It would be one thing to, let's say, get vaccinated with a non-approved vaccine and claim damage, otherwise, unless, let's say AZ is excluded and maybe simply not "preferred" then it should be ok - as per 1. 1. which ok uses "empfohlen" (recommended/endorsed) so maybe it could be argued but I think it's more in favour of being in the scope rather than not
The "empfohlen" (recommended) in the law is usually fulfilled by the vaccination being officially recommended in the vaccination list by the STIKO of the RKI (roughly the vaccine working group of the German disease control office). But the STIKO very explicitly does not recommend AZ under the age of 60.
The Laender (states) may also recommend a vaccine, deviating from the federal STIKO recommendation. But they didn't really do that either, the wording is always very unclear and weasely around AZ. In several press statements, the phrase "auf eigene Gefahr" (at your own peril) has also occured. So I would wait for a clarification.
The way I understood it these blood clots are a different kind of blood clot, and almost always deadly. But the amounts of "accepted" blood clots with the contraceptive pill are quite horrific.
I believe a lot of people are missing the point here that you can choose whether or not to the take the pill. Many women I know choose not to take it because of health side effects. The issue of side effects with vaccines is a lot of people feel like they are being coerced through talk of vaccine passports and other measures.
Why not mention the very negative mentions of AZ by macron and merkel? Macron even wanted to stop all foreign vaccines and rely on some French one.
I have no love for Putin or Johnson but this most certainly wasn’t down to just their politics. EU leaders are massively at fault here with their rhetoric too.
I'm not sure how you're getting that from that article (which doesn't even _mention_ AZ). If France had wanted to specifically use a French vaccine it would presumably have pursued an independent purchasing model, like the UK and Hungary.
I'm still waiting too see long term effects of all adenovirus based vaccines. I'm kinda estimating there to be an increased risk of strokes overall.
But I'm constantly baffled at Germany's vaccine response. Remember that Pfizer's vaccine is developed by the German company and that the president of the European commission used to be Germany's Minister of Family/Labour and Defense.
But in a way that's a result of their arrogance, so well deserved in a way.
EDIT: Wow, the responses are seriously out of this world. The German health minister fumbled ordering fast testing kits. In fact Aldi, Germany's biggest cheap supermarket chain started distributing testing kits faster than the German government[1].
They fumbled through the mask ordering and distribution and by inventing a super complicated voucher that was delayed many times to allow for cheap masks[2].
One of Germanies most important health care organizations leaderships told people to make sure they know there is no mask mandate in the office[3], and that a running nose is not a reason to stay home. This is while there were statewide mask mandates and work at home encouragement elsewhere.
You're right that it doesn't matter where BioNtech is from. What does matter however is that they are considered more safe than any of the other vaccines, and that they delivered hundreds of millions of vaccines to the US and elsewhere.
Let's stop pretending that Germany didn't fumbled through every step of the pandemic, they bought AZ because it was cheap not out of solidarity to the US. They made the rules for the EU and are now looking at AZ as the scapegoat.
Did you guys already forget the Luca app nightmare?
Arrogance. No. It is very simple: Germany does not have the concept of "National Security" and does not act like that. Germany has many big pharmaceuticals in the country. But guess what: We Germans searched a solution in a European context. We tried to not only vaccinate all of us but also everyone around us. We are exporting the shots all over the world (Canada as an example is supplied by Germany and not by the US).
And that European bureaucracy (consider spending taxpayers money) is screwing things (once in a while) up, is not a new thing.
As a German: this very belief that Germany does not have a concept of national security or national interests and that Germany alone can sacrifice and save the world is the new form of German arrogance.
As a fellow German: yeah, that is a reasonable statement. But you could also see as a idealistic dreamer.
But also: we see permanently how it does not work.
And also: I think we have a quite elaborate way of protecting our interests. Just the tools are so complex and the plans so multi leveled that we often fail.
What a seriously fucked up response to personally attack someone that made a statement based on existing research that YOU don't know about, just because YOU decided to divide the world into two people. Those that YOU think agree (which you conveniently labeled vaxers) and those that YOU disagree with. Not only that, but you don't even have the balls to actually use your account to write that incendiary comment.
It's fascinating that you dare say that given that I my content completely disproves your BS when I mentioned the BioNTech vaccine in the same paragraph.
This kind of sick narrative is exactly what made Trumps following grow so much. You are the two sides of the exact same coin that led to the hundreds of thousands of dead in the US.
"This platelet loss induced by Ad5 corresponded with increases in coagulation D-dimer levels, splenomegaly, and, later, production of megakaryocytes in the bone marrow. In contrast, these responses were blunted or ablated after injection of Ad-PEG. Ad5 activated both platelets and endothelial cells directly in vitro as evidenced by induction of P-selectin and the formation of von Willebrand factor-platelet strings and in vivo as evidenced by the induction of E-selectin messenger RNA"
Respectfully, are you a doctor? I am not. That link is from 2007 and talks about a modified Adenovirus. There’s so much medical jargon in there that I can’t make any sense of it, let alone connect it to increased risk of strokes for an Adenovirus based COVID vaccine. I understand why vaccines can be scary but ask yourself this: is your unease based on a deep medical understanding of the subject matter, or an underbelly feeling?
I believe you may be confusing adenovirus vaccines and vaccines that use adenovisues as vectors. The former protects against adenovirus infection, the later uses an adenovirus as a vector to vaccinate against some other virus.
There is a sort of common adenovirus vaccine [1].
Adenovirus as a vector is new. There is an adenovirus vector Ebola virus that is approved. I think that is the only one. The only others deployed are for COVID under emergency use authorizations. There are several for other diseases in development, but the farthest along are still in clinical trials.
What the comment basically said is that adenovirus on it's own produced coagulation aka clotting, but that PEG wrapping decreases coagulation a lot. Therefore, a vaccine embedded in PEG, like those made by BioNTech and Moderna, should lead to less coagulation.
That’s mostly a product of Minecraft’s technical choices. Modern computers can render axis aligned voxel grids on the order of 1,000,000^3 (think Minecraft scale but the blocks are sub millimeter) with PBR/GI in real time. Interactive would be another story I suppose.
That is just awesome, I go into bitcoin in 2011 or 2012 (in top few hundred users on bitcoin-otc back when price was $4 a pop) and had loads of ideas for services (+ accepted bitcoin for years for webhosting) but listened to all negative comments about crypto and spend most of them over years (have a descent stash left) and hence now not a billionaire just a millionaire, but yeh moral of story is not to listen to overly critical nerds who are overly negative about every subject (often just to be edgy/cynical) and just do it!
Yes, there's also something about techies that get older that makes them more negative? Thinking of comments on some other websites that have been around longer, such as slashdot.
You can’t fault folks for being “negative” when Armstrong’s narrative did in fact prove to be very wrong. He’s saying in 5-10 years Amazon isn’t going to suffer paying CC interchange fees, and yet here we are and that hasn’t changed.
Folks are talking about mainstream acceptance of BTC, and that means holding 1-3% of the balance sheet in BTC and an eccentric billionaire with an electric car company accepting them for payment.
To be sure, the underlying crypto value has blown up, but it’s integration into society has fallen well short of Armstrong’s predictions in 2012.
More mature/older tech individuals have seen this cycle play out before, and so they’re just not as quick to embrace the unchecked enthusiasm and optimism.
I’m mean credit card fees are still too high but I guess it’s harder to build a payment system? With square on iPads though it seems like an alternate could exist even though everyone loves Venmo...
Not negative, just more realistic as experience builds up and patterns emerge. It doesn't mean that people can judge everything perfectly, but it is backed up by the fact that the vast majority of new crazy projects don't end up actually doing anything.
Yes, but Bitcoin didn't fit a "pattern". I saw it was going to likely change the world back then, if governments didn't ban together to suppress it (which could have easily happened). And I was > 30 when I got into Bitcoin back in early 2011. I started a crypto business that fizzled out, and then had to sell most of my Bitcoins for medical bills 5 years later (sold the rest for med bills last year - just another way that medical care destroys people's future in this country, also had to liquidate a good part of my retirement).
But yeah, it didn't pan out as a payment processor, which is what I was hoping for. But mathematically, it was easy to predict that if things caught on, Bitcoin would go over $10,000. It killed me to sell mine 5 years ago.
> just another way that medical care destroys people's future in this country, also had to liquidate a good part of my retirement).
Is it right to blame medical bills rather than blame bad luck for your misfortune and/or lack of a job or income to buy healthcare to cover those medical bills? (This is general w/o knowing your specifics).
> I started a crypto business that fizzled out
Example if your crypto business (or any business you started) didn't fizzle out you would not have to have sold your bitcoins possible. Also (and this is the larger point) if you had taken a traditional and less risky job at a large company (tech or otherwise) most cases the healthcare provided would have covered (once again generally w/o knowing your specifics) your healthcare bills.
> s it right to blame medical bills rather than blame bad luck for your misfortune and/or lack of a job or income to buy healthcare to cover those medical bills
I had health insurance and a job. I had just transitioned from a job paying ~$30,000 to one paying $100,000. Perhaps my only mistake was waiting 10 years to move to a software engineering job despite hobby programming my entire life, and loving programming (my prior industry originally paid ~$50,000/year but automation, globalization, and consolidation had whitled the average salary down over 10 years)[1].
And you're stunningly naive to think that having health insurance and a job will save you from financial catastrophe if you face severe illness (and I was within 20 pounds of my ideal weight and in relatively good shape). Perhaps you can come out OK (not great) if you have a large nest egg and really good long-term care insurance (I didn't, having recently worked a $30,000/yr job with a family). If you have those, congrats: you're in the top ~5% of Americans.
But sure, let's blame "bad luck" instead of an obviously malfunctioning system. It's not necessarily capitalism. If you're not poor, it appears that medical costs are reasonable in countries with a functioning capitalist medical system (like India, Thailand, Mexico, etc). It's our weird hybrid system, where there's no competition and no downward price pressure on providers. And hospitals continue to consolidate, so prices will only go up.
> Also (and this is the larger point) if you had taken a traditional and less risky job at a large company (tech or otherwise)
You know nothing of my situation. Building that company, and programming that service (which I did while holding down a job in my old industry), was the exact thing that allowed me to flee a dying $30,000/year profession and transition into a bigcorp as a software developer making $100,000/year, a little over 1 year before my first major illness. I had tried to transition into tech once before, and was turned down for lack of experience (and to be fair, it was also during the great recession).
1. And I can tell you're the kind of person who would interject here, "maybe you were just a bad worker, and that's why your salary went down instead of up". Well, my salary has gone the other way (up, significantly) since I entered tech, even as I've struggled with significant chronic health issues. So let me stop you there.
> Yes, there's also something about techies that get older that makes them more negative?
Most ideas do not work and even most that work don't work as well (in terms of making money) as coinbase has. The only reason we are discussing what Brian was looking for in 2012 is because he is an outlier. Otherwise what he said back then would be of little interest.
Even if HN would was more pro BTC back in the day you and most others would have sold a majority of BTC when the price started crashing from the 20K USD peak
I struggle with this. How do you know when to sell for good?
I suppose it is when you predict opinion is going to work against this and public opinion seems a very slow moving thing. Unless some sort of crazy event occurs.
The responses here are surprising. Your trading activity should be based on a strategy with a clear point when you should exit, e.g. you should have a prediction of how high an asset will go and sell when it reaches that point, or some timeline/portfolio risk mix that determines when you sell. And adjust that strategy based on new information (e.g. if you have a credible reason for why that strategy is no longer applicable you should adjust). Everything else is subject to bias and emotion, which is only useful at the casinos.
That is, you should NOT sell something because you're becoming emotional drained by it as someone else suggested. That implies you're not fit for managing and investing your own wealth. Don't jump off a rollercoaster while you're still riding it.
If you don't know what your strategy would be for bitcoin or some other asset, you should figure that out before trading.
If this kind of thing is longer term, you can play the "for free" game. If your 1 turns into 2, then sell the 1 (plus tax, etc) and you're left with your initial plus a freebie. Play with the ratio however you want, and repeat as you see fit.
One signal you can use for selling is if your investment starts giving you sleepless nights. If the value is going down and you constantly think about it then its better to sell instead of letting it affect you mentally.
Ive been using bitcoin since 2011ish i think, one of the first few people on bitcoin-otc first trade was $40 for 10 bitcoins (paid with paypal transfer funily enough) i must have bought and sold hundreds over years, still have few dozen
In some cases yeh bitcoin has not lived up to initial promises, literally first line of satoshis paper is no longer valid, but it could yet be like early internet and take off (or something similar)
i wouldnt write it off but yeh you are also right its not what we thought it be, the whole store of value thing these days instead of currency
