sadly those extra days gained would do little to even put a dent in that figure.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/th...
The rigor is to give the public confidence that we're better off getting the vaccine than not.
The first two phases are the safety tests, the third one is efficacy (so we knew the vaccine was "safe" after phase 2, we just didn't know the efficacy - that's what the poster above is alluding to).
If you managed to give 5 million doses a week earlier, you save about 200 lives (about 40 deaths per million per week).
> If you managed to give 5 million doses a week earlier, you save about 200 lives (about 40 deaths per million per week).
No, that’s wrong.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/12/th...
No we didn't. :P The US has 6.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine now. Projections of up to 50M delivered worldwide by the end of the year. We're on a crazy ramp.
If you want to complain about a misallocation, a key complaint would be that they're holding slightly more than half the doses back to ensure everyone dosed can get a second dose... but with rolling production such a large holdback isn't necessary.
> What could matter is if delay increases the speed at which you can ramp up.
All the jurisdictions I know will blow through the entire supply of existing doses allocated to them very quickly. It doesn't go on a slow distribution ramp gated by approval like your ridiculous source suggests. What governs the ramp is production rates, which have been running flat-out irrespective of this decision.
You misunderstand. "Blowing through entire supply" and being left with nothing is exactly the "slow distribution" Alex Tabarrok, a professor at GMU, talks about in the link I gave. He contrasts it with vaccinating entire population on day 1. Read it carefully.
> What governs the ramp is production rates, which have been running flat-out irrespective of this decision.
I consider the vaccine production regulation people to be just as incapable at cost-benefit analysis as vaccine approval people, so I assume that most production constraints are just as artificial as the approval constraints.
>You misunderstand. "Blowing through entire supply" and being left with nothing is exactly the "slow distribution" Alex Tabarrok, a professor at GMU, talks about in the link I gave. He contrasts it with vaccinating entire population on day 1. Read it carefully.
Vs.
"Now assume that the vaccine can’t roll out to everyone immediately. For the sake of this simple model let’s assume that on day one you can only vaccinate half the population. By doing so you save 1000 lives on day 1 and 2000 lives every day thereafter for the length of the pandemic. That’s the fourth panel. Now suppose we delay the vaccine rollout by one day. 2000 people die on Day 1 but you save 1000 on Day 2 and 2000 on Day 3 and every day thereafter for the length of the pandemic. How many people were killed by the delay? Compare the 4th and 5th panels. 2000 exactly as before! "
This compares vaccinating 50% on day 1, and the remaining 50% on day 2, to vaccinating 50% on day 2 and the remaining 50% on day 3.
But in blowing through the supply, we're comparing vaccinating 1% on day 1 and another 1% on day 7 and another 1% on day 15 to vaccinating 1% on day 7 and 1% on day 8 and 1% on day 15. Not at all the same scenario.