Mar 17, 2021 08:30 AM
Europe’s mixed messages on AstraZeneca vaccine jeopardize global covid response
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennin...-response/
INTRO: The continent’s suspensions are eroding vaccine confidence just when the world needs it the most... (MORE)
Trump recommends coronavirus vaccine to those who don’t want it
https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/16/trump...s-vaccine/
INTRO: Former President Donald Trump urged Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine Tuesday evening, touting the treatments as safe and effective in fighting the virus. “I would recommend it,” Trump said during a Fox News interview. “And I would recommend it to a lot of people who don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.”
“But again,” he added, “we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also. But it is a great vaccine. It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works.” (MORE)
Why populations of countries with home-produced covid vaccines are indifferent about receiving them
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/m...slow-start
EXCERPT: . . . vaccinations rates soar in Israel, the UK, the United Arab Emirates and other countries that have monopolised supply, and poorer nations make do with a trickle of doses [...] Supply is less of an issue in Russia, China or India, all of which produce their own vaccines. But their respective government programmes have had slow starts, and there has been little public clamour to speed things up.
“People have not shown that eagerness and urgency to be vaccinated,” says Ajeet Jain, a doctor at the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality hospital in Delhi. “India is going through that phase where the disease is no longer prevalent except in a few states. People are relaxed that the disease is over from their point of view.”
The experience of India, Russia and China may prove, in time, to be typical. Even once vaccine shortages are alleviated, much of the world could still take years to achieve widespread Covid-19 vaccination, encumbered by the challenges of reaching vast and far-flung populations, lack of interest from the public and other, more pressing health priorities.
[...] The most significant impediment may be that, since September, virus rates in India have dropped steeply. ... “Look at death rates in South Asia and you’ll know why people are not dying to get vaccinated,” says Oommen C Kurian, a senior fellow at Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation thinktank. “Their sense of risk is considerably lower than, say, a Londoner.”
The same is true for the average resident of Beijing, though not for demographic reasons. China has employed blunt but effective quarantine measures to contain Sars-CoV-2 successfully, and life in the country has largely returned to normal. Though it authorised its first vaccines for emergency use in July, just 4% of the country has been vaccinated so far.
[...] Russia has been hit harder by the virus, losing 90,000 lives on official figures thought to be a significant underestimate. But there, too, uptake of the vaccine is tracking well short of government targets of inoculating 60% of the population by mid-year.
A poll of Russians this month found that two-thirds were unwilling to receive the locally developed Sputnik-V shot, in spite of peer-reviewed research suggesting that it is safe and effective. [...] Lack of trust in the Russian government is a key hurdle...
[...] Similar hurdles are likely to slow rollouts elsewhere, too, as countries assemble one of the largest logistical operations most have ever undertaken. Even once supplies are secured, some may struggle for years to reach the 70% of the population thought to be required for herd immunity, says Babak Javid, an infectious diseases scientist at the University of California, San Francisco... (MORE -details)
RELATED (scivillage): Europe's vaccine lunacy ...... Euro politics, not science, may be behind suspensions of AstraZeneca’s covid vaccine
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennin...-response/
INTRO: The continent’s suspensions are eroding vaccine confidence just when the world needs it the most... (MORE)
Trump recommends coronavirus vaccine to those who don’t want it
https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/16/trump...s-vaccine/
INTRO: Former President Donald Trump urged Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine Tuesday evening, touting the treatments as safe and effective in fighting the virus. “I would recommend it,” Trump said during a Fox News interview. “And I would recommend it to a lot of people who don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.”
“But again,” he added, “we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also. But it is a great vaccine. It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works.” (MORE)
Why populations of countries with home-produced covid vaccines are indifferent about receiving them
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/m...slow-start
EXCERPT: . . . vaccinations rates soar in Israel, the UK, the United Arab Emirates and other countries that have monopolised supply, and poorer nations make do with a trickle of doses [...] Supply is less of an issue in Russia, China or India, all of which produce their own vaccines. But their respective government programmes have had slow starts, and there has been little public clamour to speed things up.
“People have not shown that eagerness and urgency to be vaccinated,” says Ajeet Jain, a doctor at the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality hospital in Delhi. “India is going through that phase where the disease is no longer prevalent except in a few states. People are relaxed that the disease is over from their point of view.”
The experience of India, Russia and China may prove, in time, to be typical. Even once vaccine shortages are alleviated, much of the world could still take years to achieve widespread Covid-19 vaccination, encumbered by the challenges of reaching vast and far-flung populations, lack of interest from the public and other, more pressing health priorities.
[...] The most significant impediment may be that, since September, virus rates in India have dropped steeply. ... “Look at death rates in South Asia and you’ll know why people are not dying to get vaccinated,” says Oommen C Kurian, a senior fellow at Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation thinktank. “Their sense of risk is considerably lower than, say, a Londoner.”
The same is true for the average resident of Beijing, though not for demographic reasons. China has employed blunt but effective quarantine measures to contain Sars-CoV-2 successfully, and life in the country has largely returned to normal. Though it authorised its first vaccines for emergency use in July, just 4% of the country has been vaccinated so far.
[...] Russia has been hit harder by the virus, losing 90,000 lives on official figures thought to be a significant underestimate. But there, too, uptake of the vaccine is tracking well short of government targets of inoculating 60% of the population by mid-year.
A poll of Russians this month found that two-thirds were unwilling to receive the locally developed Sputnik-V shot, in spite of peer-reviewed research suggesting that it is safe and effective. [...] Lack of trust in the Russian government is a key hurdle...
[...] Similar hurdles are likely to slow rollouts elsewhere, too, as countries assemble one of the largest logistical operations most have ever undertaken. Even once supplies are secured, some may struggle for years to reach the 70% of the population thought to be required for herd immunity, says Babak Javid, an infectious diseases scientist at the University of California, San Francisco... (MORE -details)
RELATED (scivillage): Europe's vaccine lunacy ...... Euro politics, not science, may be behind suspensions of AstraZeneca’s covid vaccine