D&D and the rising pandemic

[NotAYakk]

What else you gonna do, EU restricting exports, Chinese one is argueably useless, Russians can't supply their one in enough quanties.

And only a relative few countries could manufacture the vaccines very few can develop one mostly EU/USA and Russia.

Oh, to be clear, Canada has the technology to develop a vaccine. Maybe a bit slower than a superpower, but the knowledge is here.

We where working with China of all places to finish and manufacture one. They cut off contact, and took the research. It was worth a shot, I suppose. (Currently, Canada is having a diplomatic spat with China over a little thing of an extradition treaty with the USA; but the shut down of contact was probably mostly vaccine nationalism here.)

It just lacks the ability to manufacture it in any quantities. 10 years ago it could have, but today, it isn't practical.

Canada is a strange country. It has the technology and materials to make nuclear bombs, but does not out of principle. (One of the problems with the CANDU reactor design is that it can be "easily" modified to make weapons grade fissionables. Oops.) Also, Canada isn't very good at rocketry. And moose don't carry bombs far.

If, say, even the flu vaccines Canada uses where made in country, retooling that to produce a AZ could have been viable, and the national security threat of vaccine hording wouldn't have been a problem. (Not mRNA; mRNA is new tech, but in under 10 years I suspect flu vaccines may be made using mRNA tech)

 

[Garthanos]

If, say, even the flu vaccines Canada uses where made in country, retooling that to produce a AZ could have been viable, and the national security threat of vaccine hording wouldn't have been a problem. (Not mRNA; mRNA is new tech, but in under 10 years I suspect flu vaccines may be made using mRNA tech)

They are talking a viable HIV vaccine using that tech too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As evidenced by this pandemic, materials needed for national security reasons cannot be made in another country.

Just from a raw materials standpoint, this is pretty much impossible. Lithium and titanium are 2 pretty important substances for high-tech gear. The USA isn’t in the top 6 producers for either one. Russia is for titanium; China is on both short lists.

Top Titanium Producing Countries

Top six lithium-producing countries around the world in 2019

A handful of countries dominate the market for producing lithium - a mineral that has grown in stature in recent years due to its use in batteries.

www.nsenergybusiness.com

 

[Zardnaar]

Just from a raw materials standpoint, this is pretty much impossible. Lithium and titanium are 2 pretty important substances for high-tech gear. The USA isn’t in the top 6 producers for either one. Russia is for titanium; China is on both short lists.

Top Titanium Producing Countries

Top six lithium-producing countries around the world in 2019

A handful of countries dominate the market for producing lithium - a mineral that has grown in stature in recent years due to its use in batteries.

www.nsenergybusiness.com

Pretty much.

USA can't refight WW2 in terms of production. It's not any better in any of the other "western" nations.

 

[Umbran]

It may not be possible to meaningfully stockpile any of the C19 vaccines at all, in which case you make sure you at least stockpile the non-perishable components and equipment needed to make it.

Yeah, but you don't even know if the next pandemic threat will be covid-19, or any coronavirus at all!

Humans have a habit of looking at a recent disaster, and coming to the conclusion that we need to prepare for something pretty much the same - and then finding out that the next disaster has little relation, making the preparations ineffective. Broadly speaking, we should expect the next disease issue will be something random that we haven't seen before. We will need new pushes on developments of vaccines or other treatments, because there is absolutely no guarantee that there will be an effective vaccine. Beyond the very basics of biochemistry, we aren't going to be able to predict what will be necessary to fight it.

And honeslty, on that score, we haven't actually done badly anyway. In this pandemic, vaccine production has gone about as well as can be expected, worldwide. That has not been our failure point. The point on which we most failed, globally, was on public health measures to hold off the worst of the spread.

 

[Garthanos]

Yeah, but you don't even know if the next pandemic threat will be covid-19, or any coronavirus at all!

Humans have a habit of looking at a recent disaster, and coming to the conclusion that we need to prepare for something pretty much the same - and then finding out that the next disaster has little relation, making the preparations ineffective. Broadly speaking, we should expect the next disease issue will be something random that we haven't seen before. We will need new pushes on developments of vaccines or other treatments, because there is absolutely no guarantee that there will be an effective vaccine. Beyond the very basics of biochemistry, we aren't going to be able to predict what will be necessary to fight it.

And honeslty, on that score, we haven't actually done badly anyway. In this pandemic, vaccine production has gone about as well as can be expected, worldwide. That has not been our failure point. The point on which we most failed, globally, was on public health measures to hold off the worst of the spread.

May not be corona but the odds of it being airborne and well responded to with lock downs, masks and distancing seems rather high

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, but you don't even know if the next pandemic threat will be covid-19, or any coronavirus at all!

Humans have a habit of looking at a recent disaster, and coming to the conclusion that we need to prepare for something pretty much the same - and then finding out that the next disaster has little relation, making the preparations ineffective. Broadly speaking, we should expect the next disease issue will be something random that we haven't seen before. We will need new pushes on developments of vaccines or other treatments, because there is absolutely no guarantee that there will be an effective vaccine. Beyond the very basics of biochemistry, we aren't going to be able to predict what will be necessary to fight it.

And honeslty, on that score, we haven't actually done badly anyway. In this pandemic, vaccine production has gone about as well as can be expected, worldwide. That has not been our failure point. The point on which we most failed, globally, was on public health measures to hold off the worst of the spread.

In my mind, I was taking as given that the epidemiologists’ assertion that C19 was like to become endemic, and that strongly influenced my response. But you’re 100% right that the next pathogen to blow up might be something else entirely.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

May not be corona but the odds of it being airborne and well responded to with lock downs, masks and distancing seems rather high

And flus and coronaviruses top the list of respiratory ailments of concern.

 

[NotAYakk]

I am thinking that mRNA tech might mean the end of the flu. We can print out variant vaccines faster with it. And the price per dose is already low, and could get lower.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah, but you don't even know if the next pandemic threat will be covid-19, or any coronavirus at all!

Humans have a habit of looking at a recent disaster, and coming to the conclusion that we need to prepare for something pretty much the same - and then finding out that the next disaster has little relation, making the preparations ineffective. Broadly speaking, we should expect the next disease issue will be something random that we haven't seen before. We will need new pushes on developments of vaccines or other treatments, because there is absolutely no guarantee that there will be an effective vaccine. Beyond the very basics of biochemistry, we aren't going to be able to predict what will be necessary to fight it.

And honeslty, on that score, we haven't actually done badly anyway. In this pandemic, vaccine production has gone about as well as can be expected, worldwide. That has not been our failure point. The point on which we most failed, globally, was on public health measures to hold off the worst of the spread.

There are two additional human traits, that play into a lack of preparedness.

Humans are bad at telling the difference between actual risk and perceived risk, so we tend to (at least personally) prepare for the wrong things. It's why so many people refuse to take a vaccine, with a 1/100,000 negative result, but instead will risk a disease that has a 1/1000 negative outcome. I wish that I could remember who wrote a scholarly book about this very thing, just a few years back, because I would very much like to read it.

Humans, culturally, seem to have a short memory. After SARS and MERS, there was a great deal of preparation made against the possibility of a pandemic in the near future. Labs were opened in likely hotspots (one of which was an almost prophetic choice). Larger organizations made plans for things like working remotely. (My university, for example, invested in a large number of IP phone 'kits' that could be used on home broadband connecitons.) A few years later all of that is gone, like chaff in a high wind.