Dec 19, 2021·edited Dec 19, 2021Liked by Melanie Newfield
Thanks for this article Melanie - so much of what you have written here is recognizable - my husband and I lived in Nigeria for 5 years mid to late 90s. He’s soon to become involved with a COVAX project in PNG and he will specifically be looking at vaccine hesitancy issues there so will find this interesting - thank you
Thank you Fiona. The more I hear about Nigeria, the more I realise what a fascinating and complex country it is. And PNG is another fascinating and complex country where vaccine hesitancy seems to be a big issue, although in that case I don't know anything about the history behind it.
His response was: "We can—shots cost around $2 each. We can spend $32 billion a year (0.04 percent of global GDP) on vaccines, if that's needed to keep people alive."
There's another point, namely that vaccinating the world protects us as well, since mutations that happen in Nigeria will eventually come back to the rich countries. So there's even a purely self-interested reason to want to vaccinate the world.
I'm kind of in agreement with both the CNN piece and your economist. I agree that we can afford it if we prioritised it, but I'm not convinced of the value of that strategy. I would personally rather see double doses prioritised for the world, to try and stop Covid-19 killing so many people and overwhelming health services, before wealthy countries use booster doses as an alternative to other public health measures, which is what is happening. By that, I mean that two doses of at least the mRNA vaccines still gives good protection against serious illness and death in most people, even with Omicron and even, I believe, some time after vaccination. What wanes most quickly is the protection against infection, and therefore without boosters we can't expect vaccines to give much reduction in transmission.
On the other hand, if we seriously want to get Covid-19 under control and prevent yet more new variants that are even more transmissible, then we must get transmission under control worldwide. Given the transmissibility of Covid-19, we this is unlikely to happen with vaccines alone, unless we have extraordinarily high levels of efficacy from the vaccines and implausibly high vaccination rates. That doesn't give me much hope, as too many countries seem unwilling or unable to apply other public health measures.
Thanks for this article Melanie - so much of what you have written here is recognizable - my husband and I lived in Nigeria for 5 years mid to late 90s. He’s soon to become involved with a COVAX project in PNG and he will specifically be looking at vaccine hesitancy issues there so will find this interesting - thank you
Thank you Fiona. The more I hear about Nigeria, the more I realise what a fascinating and complex country it is. And PNG is another fascinating and complex country where vaccine hesitancy seems to be a big issue, although in that case I don't know anything about the history behind it.
Great piece! I like the way that you took the time to interview some people; that takes a lot of work and dedication!
I'm not sure if you'll find this interesting, but I asked an economist about a CNN piece saying that there isn't enough money to continuously vaccinate the world: https://twitter.com/JoinAndrewNow/status/1478735467361222663.
His response was: "We can—shots cost around $2 each. We can spend $32 billion a year (0.04 percent of global GDP) on vaccines, if that's needed to keep people alive."
There's another point, namely that vaccinating the world protects us as well, since mutations that happen in Nigeria will eventually come back to the rich countries. So there's even a purely self-interested reason to want to vaccinate the world.
By the way, if you're interested then let me know your thoughts on this: https://join.substack.com/p/how-do-you-turn-views-into-signups. I'm not sure if it's a brainstorming session that you'd benefit from, but if so feel free to jump in!
I'm kind of in agreement with both the CNN piece and your economist. I agree that we can afford it if we prioritised it, but I'm not convinced of the value of that strategy. I would personally rather see double doses prioritised for the world, to try and stop Covid-19 killing so many people and overwhelming health services, before wealthy countries use booster doses as an alternative to other public health measures, which is what is happening. By that, I mean that two doses of at least the mRNA vaccines still gives good protection against serious illness and death in most people, even with Omicron and even, I believe, some time after vaccination. What wanes most quickly is the protection against infection, and therefore without boosters we can't expect vaccines to give much reduction in transmission.
On the other hand, if we seriously want to get Covid-19 under control and prevent yet more new variants that are even more transmissible, then we must get transmission under control worldwide. Given the transmissibility of Covid-19, we this is unlikely to happen with vaccines alone, unless we have extraordinarily high levels of efficacy from the vaccines and implausibly high vaccination rates. That doesn't give me much hope, as too many countries seem unwilling or unable to apply other public health measures.