6 ms·

Are these US only numbers? 600M sounds like very very few doses given worldwide population and even western world population.

maxerickson 6y ago
Total production. It's an increase of their previous estimates. It's enough for 300 million people following the schedule studied in the US trial that led to FDA emergency use authorization. Pfizer projects making more than that. The AstraZeneca vaccine has much larger production, and the J&J vaccine will also, if it is approved.
- SamBam 6y ago
  My understanding is that both the Moderna vaccine and the BioNTech one are being made in only a couple sites each. Is there any reason why more labs across the globe couldn't start producing the vaccines, under a license from those companies? Is the technology needed to create them so unique that it literally can't be made anywhere else?
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    That depends on what the bottleneck is. If it's a precursor or component then more sites won't help at all. Others have commented that it's either vials or clotting factor.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    It's more the difficulty in standing up a new site for GMP (good manufacturing practice). Closest analogy in the tech word would be standing up a new fab, but quite a bit cheaper. It takes time to iron out all the kinks and show that everything is being produced correctly and safely. And skipping this would be disastrous, since we are already reaching dangerous amounts of vaccine hesitancy.
  - mchusma 6y ago
    In this particular case the mRNA technology Moderna (and Pfizer) is completely new, these are the first two vaccines approved. Yes they spent a lot (including OWS money) to ramp production, all previous mRNA vaccine production was <1M doses per year in 2019 and before. So between Moderna and Pfizer, we are looking at probably 1.8 billion - 3 billion doses produced. There are many genuine complaints about the vaccine ramp up, but this is one of the few cases where these numbers are a "good job". This is why its so important for the FDA to give EUA to Astrazeneca now, that is a technology that can be scaled quickly. They should also encourage a readout now of J&J, which is almost certainly over the efficacy threshold and can also be scaled. With these two approvals, we can have enough vaccine for a 1st dose for everyone within the next 60 days.
  - pvarangot 6y ago
    The Sputnik adenovirus vaccine is easier to manufacture and they are allowing some countries to install their own capacity. I don't know if they improved the accuracy of their tests, they were kinda sketchy when they announced it. The PR and marketing is not targeting the US for some reason, maybe because they think no one will want a "Russian" vaccine in the US or maybe because it's more expensive... but in other countries it's going to be "the" vaccine, so I hope it works.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      They would need to do an FDA supervised trial. Edit: the Oxford AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines are adenovirus and are nearing completion of their trials, so we are on track for much wider availability.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      I suspect that the Chinese vaccine will be the most used outside of US and Europe.
nend 6y ago
>600M sounds like very very few doses given worldwide population and even western world population. Which is why people are so keen on getting more vaccines approved (in the US and abroad). Pfizer is targeting 1.3B doses manufactured in 2021, 600M from Moderna, which still leaves the world plenty short (remember each person needs 2 doses). It's a group effort, and there are additional vaccines under development/review that will hopefully contribute to the effort. There's also discussion around whether Moderna's vaccine can be reduced from 100ml to 50ml while retaining the same efficacy, which would obviously double the amount of doses provided by Moderna.
- lisper 6y ago
  > each person needs 2 doses That's not quite true. You need 2 for full effectiveness, but it's not like missing the second dose leaves you with no benefit at all. In fact, it's far from clear, from a global perspective, that having twice as many people with less-than-full-effectiveness would not better than half as many people with full effectiveness.
  - jhowell 6y ago
    > In fact, it's far from clear Seems clear from my perspective. Two doses are recommend by manufacturers. Anything more or less is pure speculation at best. Why speculate in absence of a way to test your hypothesis?
    - lisper 6y ago
      Because the manufacturer recommendations are based on achieving the best outcome for the individual receiving the treatment. But we're in a global pandemic, a situation the world has not faced in living memory. A different quality metric might be appropriate under these circumstances.
      - mns 6y ago
        So even though the manufacturers (the companies that developed the vaccines, the scientists, the people running the trials, the ones that know the data and went through a full year of tests) keep on recommending 2 doses and the advice given to the UK government was still to stick to the 2 doses, we're now going the way that "we think we know better and it's better to try something new and untested because it's a pandemic and it might be better to have less efficiency to more people, than full efficiency to less people", even though it's, again, not tested and a shot in the dark?
nostrademons 6y ago
Yes. I've got relatives in the Philippines and they're not expecting to get vaccinated until 2023/2024, assuming the virus doesn't get to them first. We're amazingly lucky in the developed world and U.S. in particular. Wealth makes it possible to buy up all the supplies (which, reportedly, the U.S. has done) and make sure your people get first in line for it. This is also why the U.S. is both idolized and hated in much of the world.
- saurik 6y ago
  > Yes. I think you are implying "no"? A "yes" would imply "in addition to those doses there are many more doses being produced for other countries".
  - nostrademons 6y ago
    "Yes" meaning the parent poster's incredulity is justified. > 600M sounds like very very few doses given worldwide population and even western world population.

maxerickson 6y ago

Total production. It's an increase of their previous estimates. It's enough for 300 million people following the schedule studied in the US trial that led to FDA emergency use authorization. Pfizer projects making more than that. The AstraZeneca vaccine has much larger production, and the J&J vaccine will also, if it is approved.

SamBam 6y ago
My understanding is that both the Moderna vaccine and the BioNTech one are being made in only a couple sites each. Is there any reason why more labs across the globe couldn't start producing the vaccines, under a license from those companies? Is the technology needed to create them so unique that it literally can't be made anywhere else?
- marcinzm 6y ago
  That depends on what the bottleneck is. If it's a precursor or component then more sites won't help at all. Others have commented that it's either vials or clotting factor.
- epistasis 6y ago
  It's more the difficulty in standing up a new site for GMP (good manufacturing practice). Closest analogy in the tech word would be standing up a new fab, but quite a bit cheaper. It takes time to iron out all the kinks and show that everything is being produced correctly and safely. And skipping this would be disastrous, since we are already reaching dangerous amounts of vaccine hesitancy.
- mchusma 6y ago
  In this particular case the mRNA technology Moderna (and Pfizer) is completely new, these are the first two vaccines approved. Yes they spent a lot (including OWS money) to ramp production, all previous mRNA vaccine production was <1M doses per year in 2019 and before. So between Moderna and Pfizer, we are looking at probably 1.8 billion - 3 billion doses produced. There are many genuine complaints about the vaccine ramp up, but this is one of the few cases where these numbers are a "good job". This is why its so important for the FDA to give EUA to Astrazeneca now, that is a technology that can be scaled quickly. They should also encourage a readout now of J&J, which is almost certainly over the efficacy threshold and can also be scaled. With these two approvals, we can have enough vaccine for a 1st dose for everyone within the next 60 days.
- pvarangot 6y ago
  The Sputnik adenovirus vaccine is easier to manufacture and they are allowing some countries to install their own capacity. I don't know if they improved the accuracy of their tests, they were kinda sketchy when they announced it. The PR and marketing is not targeting the US for some reason, maybe because they think no one will want a "Russian" vaccine in the US or maybe because it's more expensive... but in other countries it's going to be "the" vaccine, so I hope it works.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    They would need to do an FDA supervised trial. Edit: the Oxford AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines are adenovirus and are nearing completion of their trials, so we are on track for much wider availability.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    I suspect that the Chinese vaccine will be the most used outside of US and Europe.

nend 6y ago

>600M sounds like very very few doses given worldwide population and even western world population. Which is why people are so keen on getting more vaccines approved (in the US and abroad). Pfizer is targeting 1.3B doses manufactured in 2021, 600M from Moderna, which still leaves the world plenty short (remember each person needs 2 doses). It's a group effort, and there are additional vaccines under development/review that will hopefully contribute to the effort. There's also discussion around whether Moderna's vaccine can be reduced from 100ml to 50ml while retaining the same efficacy, which would obviously double the amount of doses provided by Moderna.

lisper 6y ago
> each person needs 2 doses That's not quite true. You need 2 for full effectiveness, but it's not like missing the second dose leaves you with no benefit at all. In fact, it's far from clear, from a global perspective, that having twice as many people with less-than-full-effectiveness would not better than half as many people with full effectiveness.
- jhowell 6y ago
  > In fact, it's far from clear Seems clear from my perspective. Two doses are recommend by manufacturers. Anything more or less is pure speculation at best. Why speculate in absence of a way to test your hypothesis?
  - lisper 6y ago
    Because the manufacturer recommendations are based on achieving the best outcome for the individual receiving the treatment. But we're in a global pandemic, a situation the world has not faced in living memory. A different quality metric might be appropriate under these circumstances.
    - mns 6y ago
      So even though the manufacturers (the companies that developed the vaccines, the scientists, the people running the trials, the ones that know the data and went through a full year of tests) keep on recommending 2 doses and the advice given to the UK government was still to stick to the 2 doses, we're now going the way that "we think we know better and it's better to try something new and untested because it's a pandemic and it might be better to have less efficiency to more people, than full efficiency to less people", even though it's, again, not tested and a shot in the dark?

nostrademons 6y ago

Yes. I've got relatives in the Philippines and they're not expecting to get vaccinated until 2023/2024, assuming the virus doesn't get to them first. We're amazingly lucky in the developed world and U.S. in particular. Wealth makes it possible to buy up all the supplies (which, reportedly, the U.S. has done) and make sure your people get first in line for it. This is also why the U.S. is both idolized and hated in much of the world.

saurik 6y ago
> Yes. I think you are implying "no"? A "yes" would imply "in addition to those doses there are many more doses being produced for other countries".
- nostrademons 6y ago
  "Yes" meaning the parent poster's incredulity is justified. > 600M sounds like very very few doses given worldwide population and even western world population.