[HN Gopher] Cuba's Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna
___________________________________________________________________
Cuba's Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna
Author : colinprince
Score : 279 points
Date : 2021-06-27 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| boomskats wrote:
| I've seen a lot of cynical responses to this. People are quick to
| forget that Cuba's healthcare system & medical research are world
| leading. They have far more physicians per person than any other
| country in the world [0].
|
| [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/
| johnchristopher wrote:
| While I don't debate the efficacy of their healthcare system
| (wether it's a myth or not) I am surprised their medical
| research is on par. I would have thought these are two
| different fields without much overlap. Is it not ? And if it is
| not how can we explain a country with decades of embargo has an
| efficient and healthy research medical field ?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Maybe having nothing to steal, and vanishingly few
| opportunities for corruption in academia leads to people
| actually doing the research they are supposed to be doing
| because there's nothing else to do?
| kube-system wrote:
| Cuba's healthcare system is no slouch, but they're not world-
| leading. The ones who are world-leading started vaccinating
| their populations last year.
|
| I'm not sure what physicians per capita has to do with the
| quality of their healthcare system and research. Is Bhutan the
| world leader in agriculture? They have more farmers per capita
| than anywhere in the world.
| celticninja wrote:
| Does the UD led embargo prevent them from important vaccines?
| This may be why they haven't started yet and have had to
| develop local vaccines. The fact they have 5 potential
| vaccines is significant, given that the rest of the world
| probably has produced 5 effective vaccines between them.
| kube-system wrote:
| > given that the rest of the world probably has produced 5
| effective vaccines between them.
|
| China alone has 7.
|
| There's 18 vaccines already authorized for use in various
| places around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVI
| D-19_vaccine#List_of_autho...
| celticninja wrote:
| Effective is an important qualifier in my statement.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/china-vaccines-
| questioned-af...
|
| China may have 7, but are they as effective as they
| claim?
| kube-system wrote:
| Chinese vaccines have infinitely more peer-reviewed data
| than the amount of peer-reviewed data we have to support
| the Cuban vaccines: zero.
|
| Either way, there's 11 other vaccines in use that aren't
| Chinese, still more than 5.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| vo2maxer wrote:
| Before all this fawning over Cuba's health care system,
| consider that they use their physicians abroad as revenue
| streams and propaganda to show the world how high their
| physicians per capita is. Those Cuban physicians are heavily
| restricted in what they are allowed to do [0]. Unless you have
| lived under a dictatorship as I did, you naively assume honesty
| and integrity from Cuba's version of their "great" health care
| system. Ask the many Cubans in exile, how often they have to
| send life saving medication to their families on the island.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-
| cub...
| draw_down wrote:
| Wow, using physicians as a revenue stream sounds bad. Hope
| that doesn't happen in my country where we pretty much
| constantly demonize Cuba.
| neither_color wrote:
| Cuban healthcare is the left-wing version of "Mussolini made
| the trains run on time." Both are just idealizing the concept
| of a benevolent dictatorship ostensibly getting one thing
| right and ignoring all their other human rights violations.
| yokaze wrote:
| > Ask the many Cubans in exile, how often they have to send
| life saving medication to their families on the island.
|
| Well, not to excuse the dictatorship in Cuba, but there is
| the small issue with embargo and trade restrictions the US
| places on that particular one. Theoretically, medicine is
| exempt, but in practice it isn't: https://medicc.org/ns/docum
| ents/The_impact_of_the_U.S._Embar...
| vo2maxer wrote:
| The Castro brothers and their lackeys have used the embargo
| to explain away every disastrous strategic plan they've
| concocted over the last 60+ years: Es el bloqueo. El
| bloqueo.
|
| Furthermore, take a look at the many countries which have
| trade with Cuba [0]. Their problem is mostly self-created
| through their monetary policy and the severe restrictions
| entrepreneurial Cubans face. The Castrista government must
| have its hands on every little thing that generates money.
| The slightest deviation from the party line results in
| significant punishment including prison.
|
| [0] https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/isdb_results/factsheets/co
| untry...
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| They are not world leading. Number of doctors is not a metric
| of how good your medicine is.
|
| If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical
| devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe.
| Mostly US.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Why are patented drugs or medical devices your metric for a
| good health system. Those just sound like ways for people to
| profit from a sick population. If we had better health
| outcomes for citizens, I would cite that.
| ryan93 wrote:
| All the science cuba used to develop the vaccine is
| american or european.
| La1n wrote:
| "If I have seen further it is by standing on the
| shoulders of Giants." -Newton
|
| All science is based on the work of others, and it always
| has been.
| joejohnson wrote:
| >> If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical
| devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or
| Europe. Mostly US.
|
| Citation needed!
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| The US is so far ahead of other countries, it invents more
| new novel drugs than the next 5 countries combined.
|
| And then poor countries enjoy the cheap generic versions of
| these drugs, basically subsidized by the US.
|
| https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
| qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee4...
| onli wrote:
| The US is incapable of making medications accessible to
| its own population. And not even willing to provide broad
| health insurance. That's not a country with a working or
| high quality medical system.
|
| Does the chart you link say anything about generic
| versions?
| simfree wrote:
| Pleas link to the original source rather than a picture
| on a CDN that may have been altered.
|
| Additionally, where is Cuba on this chart? Does a new,
| poorly performing pill (eg: a failed heart drug
| resubmitted to the FDA as an ED pill) counts as a newly
| discovered medication?
|
| https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-cuba-
| bec...
| celticninja wrote:
| It is ahead in development but way behind in providing
| that healthcare to it's citizens.
|
| https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-
| mortalit...
|
| Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than that of the US
| (72.5 vs. 71.9). Health workers have eliminated polio,
| tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and diphtheria. Malnutrition
| incidence amount 1-15 years olds is 0.7% compared with 5%
| in the US[0]
|
| [0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2315760/#:~:text=Life%
| 20expe....
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| If the US didn't subsidize all the other countries, you'd
| see a much different picture. It's easy to provide better
| healthcare, when someone else is paying for all R&D and
| manufacturing.
| celticninja wrote:
| Let's be entirely honest here, the US could provide
| health care for all, in the same way the NHS operates in
| the UK. It is not the R&D costs that are preventing this,
| it is a very powerful medical insurance lobby that
| prevents it.
|
| And no, it is not easier to provide better healthcare,
| even without doing the R&D.A higher GDP is what enables
| better provision of healthcare and the US has the highest
| GDP and is in the top 10 per capita, Cuba is at 87th.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-cubas-glorious-health-c...
| aazaa wrote:
| > According to the state-run biotech corporation, BioCubaFarma,
| Abdala has proven about 92.28% effective against COVID-19 in
| clinical trials, which would put it the same league as the most
| effective vaccines BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna. Huge applause
| erupted in the auditorium of the CIGB this week when the
| impressive results were announced.
|
| There's not a lot of information about exactly what this vaccine
| is or how it works. I'd be cautious about drawing conclusions
| based on press statements.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Socialism will always be playing catch-up to free markets. See
| the space race.
| lexs wrote:
| Wasn't the USSR first in space? First ICBM , first artificial
| satellite, first man in space etc?
| moogly wrote:
| They had all the firsts expect for the last one, which
| someone decided was the only one that counted.
| kube-system wrote:
| This is good news regardless, but I wish these articles had more
| detail. Some number of "% effective against COVID-19" is not
| meaningful on its own. Effective at doing _what_ , exactly?
| Preventing symptoms? Preventing transmission? Preventing death?
|
| Comparisons between different vaccines aren't at all meaningful
| without this context, and I hope the authors realize this,
| despite not mentioning it.
| ufo wrote:
| I'd say the opposite: maybe the news reports should have less
| detail. The efficacy percentages of different vaccines mean
| different things but the way they have been publicized has lead
| many people to think one vaccine is better than the other.
| We're starting to see some people refuse to get vaccinated,
| because they're shopping aroung for a vaccine that they think
| is more effective. At the end of the day, what really matters
| is vaccinating as many people as soon as possible.
| kube-system wrote:
| While I share your frustration with the general public's
| opinion on vaccination, I don't think that the idiots who
| can't comprehend the details would be convinced with fewer
| details. Those people aren't paying attention to the details
| anyway.
|
| For instance, when the J&J clot "issue" hit the news cycle,
| vaccinations across the board went down, even for vaccines
| other than J&J. These people aren't looking at any kind of
| details or data and getting confused by them, they're just
| making a decision based on word-of-mouth sentiment from their
| social/media circles. They would have never been confused by
| details in the article, because they never read it.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| I disagree. Hiding data from the public in the name of public
| good has been the basis of every censorship throughout
| history.
| ufo wrote:
| I don't see a problem with the information being available.
| But in my opinion it shouldn't be in the headline. IMO, it
| would be better if the headline just said that the vaccine
| is safe and effective.
| vidoc wrote:
| > Effective at doing what, exactly?
|
| I think at this point all the 'efficacy' numbers given by drug
| companies for the various vaccines on the market are: relative
| risk reduction of hospitalization or death.
|
| Not uninteresting per se, but would be even more interesting if
| paired with the absolute risk number [1].
|
| 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996517/
| perlgeek wrote:
| There are basically 4 effectiveness numbers, based on whether
| you measure:
|
| * positive PCR tests
|
| * showing symptoms
|
| * hospitalization
|
| * death
|
| I share kube-system's frustration with the media glossing
| over those details quite often.
|
| Here in Germany, there were numbers thrown around such as the
| mRNA vaccines being 90%+ effective, and the AstraZeneca being
| only in 60ies or 70ies (which was likely based on PCR tests).
| Which made many Germans hesitant to get that vaccine.
|
| Turns out, AstraZeneca prevents hospitalization at a roughly
| 90% effectiveness rate (recent numbers from England, don#t
| have link ready right now), which sound much better than 65%
| number.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Absolute risk will ebb and flow with the abundance of the
| virus in a population, so it wouldn't be useful as a
| comparison or as a predictor for the future since every trial
| will be different.
| andrewseanryan wrote:
| My understanding is that "effectiveness" in these studies
| means that it is x% effective at preventing covid-19. So
| comparing these numbers is not the most important thing. Most
| all of the vaccines on the market are very, very effective at
| stopping death and hospitalization, which is the most
| important thing.
| kube-system wrote:
| > preventing covid-19
|
| That could still mean several different things.
|
| I'm not questioning whether or not any of them are
| effective enough to be useful. I got the first one I could.
| I'm questioning whether or not the comparisons that others
| are making are meaningful.
| peter_retief wrote:
| Silly propoganda, it is unbelievable people still fall for this
| nonsense. I had a laugh reading the old tired revolotutionary
| rhetoric.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Why is this something to be surprised of?
|
| Antiviral vaccines, let alone inactivated ones are sixties-
| seventies era biotechnology.
|
| Any country with any much substantial industry can make one in 18
| months, let alone during national crisis, and an emergency law,
| unless its government can't even tie its own shoelaces.
| ncann wrote:
| You made it sound like child's play, and yet how many countries
| have been able to produce their own COVID vaccine and use it
| for their own people? And under US embargo no less, that's
| actually the most impressive part.
| acituan wrote:
| > yet how many countries have been able to produce their own
| COVID vaccine and use it for their own people?
|
| One of the best things about international economy is that
| not every country needs to invest in their own $anything if
| they can import it from the best, especially for cheaper.
| Therefore it is wrong to equivocate the number of countries
| that has developed their own vaccines with the number of
| countries that _can_ develop them.
|
| Cube, seems like, developed it because they had no choice,
| not as a tour de force of their medical know-how.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I believe one does not rely on international trade during a
| global pandemic.
| simfree wrote:
| If anything international trade dependency robbed Canada
| and many other nations of the ability to develop a
| vaccine and vaccinate their population in a timely
| manner.
|
| Only those nations with capable vaccine development and
| manufacturing capabilities were able to first or second
| in line to vaccinate their population.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I believe even countries which are wastelands industry
| wise can easily make some if it's nation level project.
|
| Even Bangladesh, out of all places, got a vaccine plant
| built on its own.
|
| Even freaking Rwanda seem to be about to start vaccine
| manufacturing.
| ncann wrote:
| > One of the best things about international economy is
| that not every country needs to invest in their own
| $anything if they can import it from the best, especially
| for cheaper.
|
| In general, yes, but vaccine is one of those things that
| you do NOT want to rely on someone else, and every country
| would prefer to be able to produce their own, even if it's
| more expensive. This pandemic has clearly shown that when
| shit hits the fan, every country will prioritize their own
| citizen first, which is perfectly understandable.
| the_doctah wrote:
| The embargo has been in place for quite some time. I think
| Cuba has figured out how to deal with it by now.
| sampo wrote:
| > You made it sound like child's play, and yet how many
| countries have been able to produce their own COVID vaccine
| and use it for their own people?
|
| Most of the countries that bothered to start vaccine
| development projects, also have successful vaccines, am I
| right? As far as I know, only France and Australia launched
| projects but didn't get there.
| ffggvv wrote:
| is this according to their own numbers? if so they likely pulled
| them out of their ass.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Moderna is 94.1% effective.
|
| Pfizer is 94% effective.
|
| So it's almost as good.
| tchalla wrote:
| You can't compare efficacies of vaccines across clinical trials
| because all of them aren't performed in the same environment.
| mmmrtl wrote:
| And you should really look at the confidence intervals on
| those point estimates
| GuerraEarth wrote:
| El Che Guevara made free medical education rampant and
| commonplace. When there was a breakout of Ebola some years back,
| Cuba was there, FIRST, front and center. Rival that, anybody? No
| surprise here that their vax is superlative. ALSO, when nobody
| would allow disease-stricken cruise ships to dock for medical
| help,at the initiation of Covid-19,Cuba took them. That is how
| Cubans contracted Covid. Beautiful, good, excellent, time-capsule
| Cuba.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Che Guevara also killed innocent political rivals by a firing
| squad, and put gay people in labor camps.
|
| What about their health?
| celticninja wrote:
| Whataboutism is rarely a good response to a comment, and
| almost never improves the conversation.
| cbnotfromthere wrote:
| There was no conversation in the first place. Just a bunch
| of absurd propaganda for a horror regime.
| vogon_laureate wrote:
| It's a very appropriate response to a hagiographic
| description of a man who was directly responsible for the
| death and suffering of innocents. That's not
| "whataboutism".
|
| Whataboutism would be if the commenter were to point out
| that eg. Bill Gates is also really pro-healthcare and used
| his capitalist-derived billions to improve the lives of
| countless millions more people than the aforementioned
| homophobic communist tyrant.
| pinkviper wrote:
| We should have the same cynicism towards american
| leaders. Barak Obama is a mass murdered (far worse than
| Che). Bush killed more than a million iraqis (far worse
| than Che). Clinton bombed a pharma factory killing
| millions (far worse than Che).
|
| So if you want to do whataboutism start with the US
| first, the single biggest perpetrator of violence in the
| world.
| celticninja wrote:
| I disagree.
| vogon_laureate wrote:
| Such a truly enriching riposte. It will take me eons to
| unpack it.
| celticninja wrote:
| I didn't see the value in an argument.
| [deleted]
| zepearl wrote:
| > _The Cuban vaccine is neither a vector vaccine nor does it work
| with mRNA technology. Instead, it 's a so-called protein
| vaccine._
|
| +
|
| > _That means it carries a portion of the spike protein that the
| virus uses to bind to human cells. It docks onto the receptors of
| the virus ' own spike protein, thus triggering an immune
| reaction._
|
| "thus triggering an immune reaction" because...? (genuinely
| asking - I know nothing about vaccines)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > According to the state-run biotech corporation, BioCubaFarma,
| Abdala has proven about 92.28% effective against COVID-19 in
| clinical trials, which would put it the same league as the most
| effective vaccines BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna. Huge applause
| erupted in the auditorium of the CIGB this week when the
| impressive results were announced.
|
| One thing to be careful about is the the regulating authority and
| the testing authority and the developing authority are all the
| same and have a huge incentive to have good numbers, not the
| least of which is national pride.
|
| I would be careful with those numbers.
| [deleted]
| tdrgabi wrote:
| I think you have a good point. Not sure why you're downvoted or
| "almost invisible".
| ArgyleSound wrote:
| I agree too. I look forward to Cuba allowing third parties to
| corroborate their results.
| pepperonipizza wrote:
| Absolutely, this number may be confirmed when tested by a third
| party. Medias were cautious on the russian's vaccine claims
| until the Lancet published a study on its efficacy.
|
| Edit: grammar
| ArgyleSound wrote:
| The Lancet publishing data does not mean the data is correct,
| they do not verify it. It's all based on trust.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's study on the
| connection between vaccines and autism, and the recent study
| on hydroxychloroquine based on entirely fabricated data.
| [deleted]
| dataflow wrote:
| Also note efficacy can be misleading. Pfizer was _100%
| effective_ at preventing death or serious illness in their
| trials, which is what 's really important. It was "only" 95%
| effective against getting the disease _at all_ , which isn't
| particularly important.
|
| i.e. even a vaccine that has 0% efficacy (doesn't prevent mild
| cases at all) and yet is ~100% at preventing severe cases would
| be on par with Pfizer's, whereas one that does the converse
| (prevents all mild cases but no severe ones) would be
| drastically worse. Not saying these extremes are _likely_ , but
| we need numbers on the former rather than the latter to say
| whether another vaccine truly 'rivals' that of Pfizer.
|
| P.S. (rant): Why don't we just define a single word for the
| metric for what really matters and just use that?? It boggles
| my mind.
| kube-system wrote:
| Another example: Sinovac's Vaccine is 100% effective (at
| preventing death in Brazil) and 50.7% effective (at
| preventing symptoms in Brazil)
| marcodiego wrote:
| Coronavac efficacy in Brazil has been way higher than 90%
| at preventing death, right:
| https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-55639265 ?
| kube-system wrote:
| Yep, fixed. Copied the wrong number.
| sgc wrote:
| Preventing infection is very important in reducing spread of
| the disease to others. Vaccines in the end work best when we
| reach herd immunity, and that occurs by preventing most
| infection, and thus the possibility of mutation.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Preventing infection
|
| I agree! I didn't say anything about the importance of
| preventing infection.
| sgc wrote:
| Getting the disease is being infected. It is important
| that people not get it in the first place, so they can't
| transmit it to others.
| dataflow wrote:
| Not quite. As far as the terminology goes, I don't
| _think_ they 're the same, since to me having disease
| implies feeling ill--note "disease" = "not at _ease_ " =
| "COVID-19"--whereas infection implies merely carrying the
| SARS-CoV-2 virus in your body regardless of any visible
| effects. (Having SARS-CoV-2 does _not_ imply you have
| COVID-19!) But in any case, let me clarify this.
|
| What I agree with (and in my initial comment I said
| nothing about) is that it matters if people can spread
| the virus to others.
|
| What I _don 't_ with is that it matters if you're
| "infected" _if you can 't spread it to others_ (and don't
| have severe symptoms).
|
| The important thing here is that, from what I recall Dr.
| Fauci said a month or so ago, there have been promising
| indications that vaccinated people who get infected with
| the virus are both significantly less likely to get the
| _disease_ (COVID-19) _and_ to transmit the virus (SARS-
| CoV-2) to others (independently of the disease,
| COVID-19). You can read about this on the CDC website
| [1]. (And my assumption was that was a big factor in why
| they lifted the mask mandate... because fewer people are
| capable of spreading it even if they get the virus.)
|
| So no, it doesn't matter if you merely get infected. What
| really matters is how many people can become severely
| sick as a result of your infection, whether that's you or
| others. Which is important because these vaccines seem to
| limit transmission _itself_.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/sci
| ence-br...
| sgc wrote:
| If you have the virus in you, there is always potential
| for illness, transmission, and mutation. Even if chances
| are reduced, not getting it in the first place is better;
| and all else equal, a vaccine that does a better job of
| stopping infection is better than one that does not.
| Since virus mutations are an unknown, "past performance
| does not guarantee future results" very much applies. So
| although I agree how sick people get is very important
| for a vaccine, and in the short term certainly the most
| important aspect, it is not the only important criterion
| to measure.
|
| As to why the US CDC lifted the mask mandate while the
| WHO is recommending vaccinated people wear masks to try
| to stop the spread of the Delta variant, and there have
| been many documented cases of large parts of groups of
| vaccinated people getting the Delta variant as well as
| other variants - some of whom have gotten seriously ill -
| I have no comment.
| dataflow wrote:
| You're splitting hairs at this point. Yes, _all else
| being equal_ , I'd prefer not to get the virus too. All
| else being equal there are lots of things I'd prefer over
| other things, but they turn out to be negligible and stop
| mattering in the presence of so many bigger fish to fry.
|
| And I'm _not_ saying they should stop measuring anything
| either. They should measure whatever they feel like. All
| I 'm saying is most people's #1 concern ( _including that
| of those in healthcare_ ) is "will I/others get severely
| ill", and IMHO that means _that 's_ the information that
| needs to be conveyed as accurately as possible to the
| public _first and foremost_. Especially when there seems
| to be such a highly likely possibility that many people
| who merely "have" the virus will feel no effects. Of
| _course_ nothing is a guarantee and it 's even _possible_
| the vaccines will turn out even worse than the disease in
| a few years. Nobody claimed otherwise.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I believe it is 95% effective at getting the disease _with
| symptoms_. I understand they never tested people who had no
| symptoms in their trials.
| dataflow wrote:
| Oh interesting. Would you have a link on this?
| cm2187 wrote:
| That's what I have seen mentioned repeatedly on HN. Some
| of the comments link to articles and studies, but not
| being a doctor myself, I have not verified them
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=
| fal...
| dataflow wrote:
| Ok thanks. Btw, I think my comment is actually correct
| with that definition, given how having the disease
| (COVID-19) implies having symptoms. IIRC that's precisely
| when they say you have SARS-CoV-2 (the virus, which you'd
| be an asymptomatic carrier of), but not COVID-19 (the
| disease).
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| How much data (read: jabs) is necessary to evaluate the
| ability to prevent hospitalizations when even without the jab
| only a small percentage of cases lead to hospitalization? How
| much care is given to ensure the jab group's demographics
| reflect the "control" (i.e., the broader population).
|
| For example, ppl getting chemo aren't given the jab, are
| they? Yet they are counted if they get the virus, end up in
| hospital, etc. The point being, extrene Covid preys on the
| (immune) weak. Yet the jabs aren't tested on ppl who profile
| as such. How is that accounted for in evaluating a vaccine?
| perlgeek wrote:
| Disclaimer: layman here, just repeating what I heard and
| read the past months/years.
|
| > How much care is given to ensure the jab group's
| demographics reflect the "control" (i.e., the broader
| population).
|
| This is mostly done through sampling all ages. In general,
| older people have a weaker immune system than younger, so
| older people can serve as a model for younger, immune-
| suppressed people. That's not ideal, but generally
| preferable to testing new drugs in chemo patients.
|
| In cases where people have an elevated risk (chemo,
| pregnancy, other immune suppression situations like after
| transplants), the best you can do is vaccinate as many of
| the contact persons around them.
|
| (Regarding pregnancies, I don't know how much of that is
| actual risk regarding vaccination, and how much is related
| to the difficulty of testing drugs on pregnant women. For
| example in Germany, drug tests are on pregnant women are a
| very delicate topic and mostly avoided by pharma companies,
| mostly due to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal )
| dataflow wrote:
| I'm a layman so I don't know if I can really give a
| satisfying answer to your question. All I know is what I
| see just doesn't make sense to me.
|
| Even in April 2020 we had rough but useful numbers on the
| hospitalization rate. Just some quick Googling turns up
| e.g. [1] which says that around 20% of those who test
| positive end up hospitalized. Now the Pfizer vaccine by
| itself had like 40k participants, with 9 severe (out of 162
| confirmed cases) of COVID-19 in the placebo group, and 1
| severe case (out of 8 confirmed cases) in the vaccine
| group. [2] [3] So right off the bat it looked pretty
| promising, and IMHO they could've just cited these numbers
| and let people judge for themselves... it's not like people
| don't have the intuition to realize that 1 patient couldn't
| have been 2-3 instead. But even if you think that wasn't
| enough data to be convincing, at least _now_ we have mass
| vaccination rates they could be citing. Like literally ~40k
| people have been hospitalized with COVID-19 in just the
| last week and _nearly all COVID deaths are among the
| unvaccinated_ now, and it 's not like the vaccine just came
| out last week.
|
| _An Associated Press analysis of available government data
| from May shows that "breakthrough" infections in fully
| vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more
| than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That's about 0.1%._
| [4]
|
| How is that _still_ not enough data to switch metrics at
| this point? Why do they _still_ think efficacy rates are
| more relevant for people instead?
|
| [1] https://www.tfah.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/04/COVIDunderly...
|
| [2] https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-
| release-deta...
|
| [3] I don't know why this reporting differs from the 100% I
| see claimed elsewhere; 1 severe case doesn't sound like
| 100% effective at preventing severe cases? I don't know if
| they're discussing different trial phases or have different
| thresholds for "severe" or something else... but
| regardless, it's irrelevant to my point.
|
| [4] https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-
| health-941fc...
| mfsch wrote:
| I think the 100% number comes from the fact that the one
| vaccinated severe case in the original study just was
| just barely below the threshold of oxygen saturation they
| had defined but the person required no medical care, so
| it wouldn't be classified as severe by "regular people's
| standards".
| dataflow wrote:
| Ah, thanks!
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| More questions, if you don't mind...
|
| Is it really scientific (?) to compare the first 6 months
| to the second? That is, for example, Covid ravaged
| extended care facilities. Was that the virus of too many
| facilities being ill prepared?
|
| As for recently, "unvaccinated" is fairly broad and in
| aggregate hides important details. That is, are those ppl
| unjabbed by choice, or by necessity (i.e., immune
| compromised, pregnant, nursing homes, etc.) Why isn't
| this important distinction made?
| dataflow wrote:
| I'm not a CDC spokesman, sorry. You'll have to ask them.
| All I can do is to try to exercise a bit of common sense.
| And my common sense says you shouldn't wait for an RCT
| for "science" to tell people parachutes save lives...
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Marketing
| mfsch wrote:
| The main problem is that you need a lot more data to make
| confident statements about severe cases than just about
| symptomatic cases. That 100% number of the Pfizer trial had a
| huge uncertainty interval. So even though severe cases are
| what you care most about, you usually don't want to wait for
| a study that gives you good data on those and measure (and
| compare) symptomatic cases instead. Zeynep Tufekci discussed
| this issue of study endpoints in one of her recent articles:
| https://www.theinsight.org/p/vaccine-efficacy-statistical-
| po...
| dataflow wrote:
| But couldn't they just tell people about the uncertainty?
| (like "90-98% effective"?) Or underestimate the efficacy
| (in some objective way, like "at least 90% effective"). Or
| something else, as long as they're ultimately measuring
| what matters and what people actually care about. It's not
| like that 100% with their sample sizes would realistically
| ever suddenly turn into 50%, would it? It seems just
| inherently wrong to measure the wrong thing and convey it
| with certainty than to measure the right thing and convey
| it with the associated uncertainty, does it not?
| mfsch wrote:
| They actually had a table on the efficacy for severe
| cases in the supplemental material of the original Pfizer
| study (table S5 in [1]), but all it shows is that the
| study doesn't really give any information on this. The
| 95% confidence interval given for severe cases after the
| first vaccine is 20.1-99.7%.
|
| From what I understand, it's really a trade-off between
| waiting for proper data about the efficacy you're most
| interested in, or starting to vaccinate people as soon as
| you have efficacy data for an endpoint that's still
| meaningful but easier to reach. Having much fewer
| symptomatic cases is already a pretty good result, and I
| think it was expected that the protection would also
| extend to severe cases.
|
| [1]: https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
| /suppl_f...
| dj_gitmo wrote:
| Having domestic vaccine development and production capabilities
| probably didn't seem that important to a lot of countries until
| recently.
|
| I bet a lot of countries are going to try and developer their own
| capabilities as a result of this crisis.
| superkuh wrote:
| Excellent news but there's a translation error or
| misunderstanding in this article.
|
| > The scientists are using yeast as a receptor-binding domain.
|
| I think they must mean they're using yeast as the protein
| expression medium and encode the receptor binding domain of the
| spike protein (along with the rest of the spike?) with yeast-y
| promoters and base sequence preferences. I guess there's nothing
| on the spike protein that needs to be glycosylated so non-mammal
| cell culture works.
| [deleted]
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| I was reading about the mRNA approach recently and wondered why
| not just inject the spike protein itself? Why have our body
| make the protein instead? Does anyone here know? It's
| interesting to see that both approaches yield such good
| results, and the end result, triggering immune response to the
| spike, seems about the same.
| detaro wrote:
| That's what the Novavax vaccine does, but it's still in
| testing and approval stages (although the trials results for
| now look like it works fine). As far as I understand, part of
| the problem is finding a way to produce the correct protein
| efficiently.
| occamrazor wrote:
| The short answer is that proteins are too complex to
| manufacture, and it's more effective to instruct your body
| (which has a lot of protein manufacturing capacity) to
| produce the protein.
|
| There are attempts to use peptides. They are much shorter
| chains of amino acids , they are easy to produce, but it's
| difficult to find peptides that reproduce the external
| structure of the virus. There is an experimental Russian
| vaccine based on peptides, but the results haven't been
| published yet.
| danzk wrote:
| There's nothing medically wrong with the approach, however
| protein based pharmaceuticals are slow and expensive to
| manufacture, which isn't ideal when you are trying to
| vaccinate millions of people, cheaply.
|
| To manufacture a protein you need to create a genetically
| modified bacteria that contains the DNA for that protein,
| grow a large batch of this bacteria (which can be difficult
| at scale), and then break open the bacteria filter out all
| the other proteins and just keep the one you want.
|
| This is why the mRNA is so elegant, it gives your body the
| instructions to manufacture the protein itself.
| superkuh wrote:
| It boils down to the mRNA process being faster and more of a
| _sure thing_ for a novel virus. I hope there are eventually
| many more effective protein based vaccines approved.
|
| The problem with expressing your protein in some animal cell
| is that often times there are sugars that cells add to
| proteins and they differ by lifeform type. So the protein
| will end up shaped different in a yeast than in a animal
| cell. Additionally, growing in a third party host lifeform
| often leads to situations where you can't get it to grow in
| the host anymore because the virus changes.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The sure thing for a novel virus, as I understood, is an
| inactivated vaccine.
|
| For everything else, you are never sure if the biotech
| tricks, with all their intricacies, will work in that
| individual case.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Why have our body make the protein instead?
|
| Not so easy to make enough, and handle it just like every
| isolated biological molecule?
| danzk wrote:
| It's expensive and difficult to scale when you're trying to
| make millions of doses.
| bccdee wrote:
| This is pretty exciting news. Cuba has a long history of sending
| medical aid to other developing countries, and right now the
| vaccine timeline for a lot of poor African countries is really,
| really bad. If this pans out, it could save a lot of lives.
| [deleted]
| ErneX wrote:
| You mean they force cubans to work abroad while the
| dictatorship charges dollars for it, that's some kind of modern
| slavery.
| sonograph wrote:
| > This is pretty exciting news. Cuba has a long history of
| sending medical aid to other developing countries, and right
| now the vaccine timeline for a lot of poor African countries is
| really, really bad. If this pans out, it could save a lot of
| lives.
|
| Does Cuba have the capacity to produce enough vaccines for
| those nations? That would be really surpising to me
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| They'll probably be more likely to share enough technical
| know how that production elsewhere is possible.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| I don't know the answer to that question, but since this is a
| protein vaccine it should at least be much easier to
| manufacture at scale.
| jonas_kgomo wrote:
| Cuba is also known to train African doctors and return them
| back to Africa. They also helped South Africa during the
| apartheid regime
| kortilla wrote:
| That has no relation to vaccine production at all.
| LightG wrote:
| It relates in terms of Cuba's attitude to international
| aid and the possibility of doing something similar with
| the vaccines.
| gramie wrote:
| I have never heard of this. The African National Congress
| (ANC), which fought against Apartheid for decades, had
| close ties with communist regimes in Angola and Mozambique.
| Those countries in turn had Cuban help in the fight against
| (South Africa-backed) right-wing rebels.
|
| The South African government at the time was rabidly anti-
| communist -- think Eugene McCarthy and the red scare in the
| U.S. -- so I doubt they would have much to do with Cuba.
| morelisp wrote:
| They helped South Africa, not the South African
| government, which was somewhat famously hostile to the
| majority of South Africans.
| fernandezpablo wrote:
| I'll add another trivia: they also throw you in jail if you
| speak badly of the current regime, which btw doesn't allow
| free elections.
| baybal2 wrote:
| They also attacked French, and South Africans in Angola,
| btw, fyi
|
| And then the apartheid croaked everywhere south of 17th
| parallel
| jonas_kgomo wrote:
| this is what i am looking forward to, as an African what do you
| think we can do to accelerate vaccine access
| pmoleri wrote:
| This is a great example. It's incredible than in all latin
| america no other country has developed a vaccine, having huge
| countries like Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.
| fernandezpablo wrote:
| Can't believe people is so eager to believe in this without any
| real scientific publication of vaccine efficacy.
|
| Cuba lacks things so common as soap, to the point that you can
| bribe police officers or even pay sex workers with a tiny hotel
| soap bar or shampoo flask.
| macinjosh wrote:
| They didn't need to because they aren't embargoed like Cuba is.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Brazil partnered with a lab in China. Their govt made a lot of
| mistakes, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.
| marcodiego wrote:
| > Their govt made a lot of mistakes, but this doesn't seem to
| be one of them.
|
| The FEDERAL government did made this mistake. Repeatedly:
| https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/veja-10-vezes-em-que-
| bolsona...
| zanellato19 wrote:
| We do have a few vaccines in development here, but the
| federal government seems to want to block them all.
|
| There is ButanVac, there is one in development in UFPR and
| I'm sure there are others. Sadly, our federal government is
| beyond terrible right now, but I imagine we could have
| developed one of our own already.
| seu wrote:
| There is an Argentine Covid vaccine in development
| https://www.infobae.com/salud/ciencia/2021/04/23/la-vacuna-a...
| (in Spanish)
| tchalla wrote:
| > "The CIGB Research Institute has 30 years of experience in
| vaccine research. I trust the results that have been published.
| These are serious studies, with the participation of researchers
| and institutions committed to science," Moya said.
|
| We at least have one expert epidemiologist vouching for the
| results.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Perhaps a false equivalency, but how many epidemiologists were
| on Twitter and elsewhere in 2020 strongly contesting the lab
| leak theory?
| Yoric wrote:
| Note that this lab leak theory is, at the current stage,
| still a theory. At best, time will tell whether it was true.
| Despegar wrote:
| Cuba actually has 5 vaccine candidates, and 2 of them have
| greater than 90% effectiveness. A great showing for a small,
| socialist island nation under decades of embargo by hostile anti-
| communist forces.
|
| https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cubas-Soberana-02-COVID-...
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| > anti-communist
|
| This is a positive thing
| dang wrote:
| Taking this thread straight into ideological flamewar hell was
| not a good call. Please don't do that to HN. Of course the real
| damage is caused more by the upvoters, not the original
| comment, but you've started it by tossing egregious flamebait
| in the first place.
|
| I will mark this off-topic now (which downweights it on the
| page) and we'll see how good or bad the other comments are, but
| at the time I'm typing this, it doesn't matter how good or bad
| the other comments are, or whether this thread even has any
| actual comments about Cuban vaccines, because the flamewar you
| started has filled it with low-rent internet flaming about (god
| help us) communism, Israel, and who knows what else. Such
| flamewars have nothing to do with the mandate of this site.
| They convince no one of anything, except how right they are and
| how aggrieved they are and therefore how justified they are in
| doing whatever they want to the other side.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| ---
|
| Edit: I'm getting the feeling that I may have left some people
| with the impression that I lack sympathy for Cuba or admiration
| for the achievements of Cuban researchers. Not at all. I think
| this is a great topic for HN to discuss. In order to be able to
| discuss it, we need to avoid flamewar and to avoid flamewar we
| need to avoid flamebait. That's all I mean, and I can see how I
| put it in an excessively flamey way myself. Sorry!
|
| If you don't see how the GP comment is flamebait, that might be
| because you're not aware of how large and
| geographically/politically/ideologically distributed this forum
| is. What to some readers reads as a bland factual statement is
| guaranteed to land with others as an outright provocation. That
| is obvious to me because I deal with these divisions in this
| forum every day. But I can see how it might not be obvious to
| others, and that's no doubt why my comment came across as
| excessive. Perhaps this was conditioned by spending the bulk of
| yesterday dealing with political flamewars on HN.
| tuxie_ wrote:
| I find your language much more inflammatory than the comment
| you are referring to.
| umvi wrote:
| "Of course the real damage is caused more by the upvoters,
| not the original comment"
|
| Original comment invited political flaming by throwing in
| the "great showing" jab at the end.
| tuxie_ wrote:
| Except for the word "great" the entirety of that comment
| is factual, and as many pointed out, the embargo is the
| main reason why this piece of news is so remarkable. I
| fail to see the "invitation" to flame honestly. It's more
| about how the moderator interpreted the comment rather
| than what it's actually there.
| umvi wrote:
| It's possible to state factual things in a way that
| invites heat instead of light.
|
| > I fail to see the "invitation" to flame honestly.
|
| Many people will end up interpreting "A great showing for
| a small, socialist island nation under decades of embargo
| by hostile anti-communist forces." as "A great showing
| for a nation being oppressed and bullied for decades by
| the big bad US and its bully friends". And, well, the
| knee jerk reaction is to defend yourself if you think
| someone is accusing your country of bullying another
| country for no reason.
| tuxie_ wrote:
| Wow, I think that interpretation says way more about the
| reader than the OP.
| dang wrote:
| I hear you. Seeing HN threads on fire does that to me
| sometimes.
| leto_ii wrote:
| > I hear you.
|
| Do you? Agreeing with parent implies that you consider
| your own comment to be highly inflammatory (and
| implicitly against HN code of conduct etc.). If that is
| the case, you can take it down or edit it with an
| apology.
|
| NOTE: I'm not saying I agree with parent, just pointing
| what seems to me to be a logical necessity stemming from
| your agreement with parent.
| dang wrote:
| "I hear you" doesn't mean "I agree with the maximalist
| interpretation of what you say". It means "we have common
| ground, and I'm willing to give something".
|
| The problem with your logical inference is that you're
| applying binary logic and human interactions are
| profoundly non-binary.
| leto_ii wrote:
| I have just now read the edit of your parent comment. I
| appreciate your clarifications as well as your
| willingness to nuance your position.
|
| I can't really imagine the amount of effort you have to
| put into keeping HN on track. I thank you for that as
| well.
|
| I do however want to mention that the US cultural context
| is not always that apparent for a non-American (such as
| myself). My comments were made taking into account
| strictly the GP and your comment, not any pre-existing
| cultural context. Back where I'm from (broadly speaking
| the EU) simply mentioning that Cuba is socialist or that
| the embargo is anti-communist doesn't come across as
| particularly controversial or flame-bating.
| dang wrote:
| I know that's true and I hear you :) - the challenge is
| to get a large community like this to understand and
| respect how _differently_ things land among the different
| subgroups in the community. I mean, an internet forum is
| in one way an utterly trivial thing and at the same time,
| if we can really get this right it is actually a
| contribution to the practice of peace in the world, which
| is not a trivial thing at all. A strange incongruity.
|
| I wrote about that here if you (or anyone) are
| interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
| morelisp wrote:
| Despegar's comment gets to the heart of why the Cuban vaccine
| is interesting. Nobody would be surprised if a nation with
| open trade with the US could manufacture something at this
| quality level; most of them are manufacturing Pifzer and
| Moderna.
| dang wrote:
| Good point, but it doesn't matter because the ideological
| bullhorn drowns that out and guarantees a flamewar. Just
| look at the responses it generated. We made it to "you want
| all the Jews in Israel to die" in three hops.
| morelisp wrote:
| That seems to have less to do with what Despegar actually
| wrote - which is the focus of your criticism - and more
| to do with the increasingly conspiratorial "conservative"
| (i.e. memetic-right) portion of its audience HN's
| moderation has tolerated over the years. (The shift is
| not specific to HN, but different moderation policies
| could have provided better outcomes, and have in other
| fora.)
| dang wrote:
| Everyone thinks the problem is caused by the people they
| disagree with. After dealing with literally hundreds of
| thousands of HN comments I can tell you that experience
| has taught me entirely otherwise.
|
| This goes along with the view that the forum would be a
| peaceful and productive place if only those people (the
| ones I disagree with) were moderated and banned, and
| therefore it is the moderators' fault when flamewars
| happen on HN. Much as I'm deeply interested in improving
| as a moderator, I don't think this view is realistic. In
| fact the solution is in the opposite direction: less
| blaming of the others, more effort to see one's own
| contributions more clearly. Needless to say this applies
| irrespective of political or ideological or geographical
| identification.
|
| (And yes, I need to do more of this too - for example
| it's clear that I could have handled this particular case
| much better. I was hasty and (ironically?) a little
| inflamed myself, not because of anything to do with Cuba
| or vaccines but because I didn't want to spend a second
| afternoon in a row dealing with a really nasty political
| flamewar. As a result I created a meta version of the
| same thing. Such lessons are expensive, which is
| fortunate.)
|
| p.s. I see that your replies are getting rate-limited.
| That doesn't seem fair, so I'll turn that off for now. In
| return I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from this sort
| of destructive comment in the future:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26848534. That's why
| we rate limit accounts. Actually you've done so much of
| that that we could easily have banned you and a rate
| limit was a mild response; but I don't want to throttle
| anyone from responding to me in a discussion about
| moderation.
| morelisp wrote:
| > we could easily have banned you
|
| "oh no"
|
| (You're not really engaging the points raised and I find
| the low-key threat hilarious, so no, I won't be
| responding further.)
| baybal2 wrote:
| Daniel, the truth of the matter is that "you want all the
| Jews in Israel to die" type of post can, and is being
| thrown everywhere completely regardless of the merit of
| original conversation.
|
| And yes, it's a perfect tactic to sink any topic on a
| site with any kind of automoderation.
|
| You cannot properly discuss anything moderately
| controversial if any topic can get framed, and sunk as
| "flamebait" because moderately controversial topics are
| "flamebait".
|
| People have heated discussions about matters of ideology,
| that's the very obvious truth of life.
|
| The more important is the matter, the more, longer,
| louder, and more emotionally people will argue.
| dang wrote:
| That's an argument for unmoderated flamewar. That's not
| what HN is. If you're imagining a version of HN that is
| "like the current HN, but without the current moderation
| practices," you'll have to forgive me for considering
| that a fantasy.
|
| There's also no evidence that anybody said that as a
| "discussion sinking" tactic. On the contrary, the
| simplest explanation easily applies: people responded to
| flamebait with more flamebait, which cascaded into
| flamewar. This is one of the most common phenomena that
| exists here, and you don't need sinister constructs to
| understand it.
| bookofsand wrote:
| That Cuba is ruled by a communist party is, unfortunately,
| relevant to this conversation: there is a significant chance
| the claimed results are pure fabrication. First line of the
| article: "Cuba's health authorities said this week the
| domestically produced Abdala vaccine has proven to be 92%
| effective against the coronavirus in clinical trials.".
|
| Personally, I hope this is one of the rare times when
| communist authorities tell the truth. Or hopefully Cuba 2020
| has a different relation to the truth than Eastern Europe
| 1980. But count me skeptical until independent trials confirm
| the results.
|
| People that lived under a communist party regime learned the
| hard way that communist regimes engage routinely in fake
| data. From 99% elections to the incessant claims that the
| quality of life is superior to the "decadent capitalist
| West", when reality on the field looks like this:
| https://dustyoldthing.com/inside-soviet-grocery-store.
| rideontime wrote:
| How is that off-topic? It's the whole reason the story is
| remarkable at all.
| dang wrote:
| The flamewar it predictably produced is off topic. There
| are other ways of posting about this that don't lead to
| flamewars.
| aliasEli wrote:
| Please give an example of how they could have written it.
| leto_ii wrote:
| Not sure parent should be considered as inflammatory as you
| take it to be. The core idea was that having 5 vaccines that
| performed well is a good showing for a small country,
| especially one that has been under heavy embargo for many
| decades.
| dang wrote:
| If the GP had posted that sentence instead, it would of
| course have been fine. The problem is when it comes in the
| form of ideological boilerplate.
| leto_ii wrote:
| The following is the entirety of the GP, quoted here for
| ease of access:
|
| > Cuba actually has 5 vaccine candidates, and 2 of them
| have greater than 90% effectiveness. A great showing for
| a small, socialist island nation under decades of embargo
| by hostile anti-communist forces.
|
| Which part is ideological boilerplate? Is it false that
| Cuba is a small, socialist island nation? Is it false
| that it has been under decades of embargo? Is it false
| that the forces that are imposing the embargo (mainly the
| US) are hostile to Cuba and anti-communist?
|
| NOTE: You should not infer any agreement or disagreement
| to GP from my comment. I simply find it to be literally,
| factually correct. If it isn't please point me to sources
| that invalidate any of the factual points I mentioned.
| detaro wrote:
| Ideological boilerplate doesn't mean "not true".
| leto_ii wrote:
| It does seem to imply that. If the statements are simply
| factually true, what makes them ideological? Is it merely
| typing the words socialist and communist?
| [deleted]
| stingraycharles wrote:
| I'd argue that the parent post you're replying to is
| relatively positive and factual, and it's the knee-jerk
| responses that it triggered that are the problem.
|
| Now you can argue that this is why the parent post is a
| flamebait, but since the sole fact that Cuba is such a small,
| socialist country is why this vaccin is interesting in the
| first place, you may as well ban this vaccin from being
| discussed on HN entirely.
| dang wrote:
| When a comment contains flamebait, which the GP obviously
| did, it bears responsibility for the knee-jerk responses
| that it triggers.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&so
| r...
|
| > you may as well ban this vaccin from being discussed on
| HN entirely
|
| I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me. The situation
| seems rather simple: non-flamebait, non-flamewar discussion
| of the vaccine story is welcome. Flamebait and flamewar,
| about this story or any other story, is not.
| cft wrote:
| I screenshot despegar's comment when it was the top one
| and sent it to my tech friends (with the implied meaning
| - see how useless HN has become, it's been overwhelmed by
| the ideologues, it's a write-off). So thanks for trying
| to defend the formerly great site.
|
| And separately: in the last 5 years i took a break from
| the Silicon Valley and spent most of the time in Latin
| America, traveling and learning Spanish. Check my IP
| history. Had to deal with the medical system and with the
| so called "Cuban doctors" in various countries. The
| original comment completely distorts the factual truth
| about Cuban medicine.
| kingofpandora wrote:
| > A great showing for a small, socialist island nation under
| decades of embargo by hostile anti-communist forces.
|
| Did they edit their post because there is nothing even
| remotely ideological or controversial in that statement?
| dang wrote:
| We must be looking at this from different perspectives.
| From my perspective that sentence is ideological
| boilerplate, the sort that would appear in a political
| pamphlet. (That doesn't mean I disagree with it!) Because
| the audience here is extremely varied along many axes:
| ideological, geographical, you name it, that sort of
| rhetoric about a divisive topic is guaranteed to land as a
| provocation with certain sectors of the audience, and this
| is extremely likely to produce a flamewar. HN commenters
| are asked not to post comments that are extremely likely to
| produce flamewars. We all have that responsibility on a
| large, public, optionally anonymous internet forum
| dedicated to topics of intellectual curiosity (which is
| what HN is), because otherwise such a forum literally can't
| exist.
| kingofpandora wrote:
| I still don't see it.
|
| > A great showing
|
| This part is subjective, so perhaps is the most
| problematic, but I don't think we normally react
| negatively to calling scientific achievements "great".
|
| > for a small,
|
| Factual.
|
| > socialist
|
| Factual (although I would have expected "communist").
|
| > island nation
|
| Factual.
|
| > under decades of embargo
|
| Factual.
|
| > by hostile anti-communist
|
| I think even pro-embargo folks would be ok with this
| description.
|
| > forces.
|
| Small problem here maybe?
| pvg wrote:
| It's trivial to write a flame-generating comment made
| entirely of facts, 'factual' isn't quite the defense
| against this you might think it is.
| aliasEli wrote:
| I am very pleased by the way you moderate discussions on
| HN in general, but I really think you are very wrong on
| this. It is pretty clear that you are only thinking about
| the US perspective on things.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| edit: after being bombarded with negative votes I decided to
| remove the post that was highlighting the human rights
| situation in Cuba
| morelisp wrote:
| > - Guantanamo torture camp is located there and tolerated
|
| You're honestly trying to blame _Cuba_ for this one?
| kmonsen wrote:
| Seriously, or all the things to blame Cuba for that is not
| one of them unless I'm misunderstand something. That's
| basically a US military base they refuse to hand back.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Guantanamo is a little different: That's Cuban territory that
| the US refuses to return. Any human rights violations that
| happen there are on the US.
|
| But otherwise, yes, Cuba is a human rights disaster in it's
| own right.
| liberalbias998 wrote:
| It is worth noting as well; that other countries in the world
| have socialised medicine alongside freedom of speech and a
| free democratic government.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| Self-censor after negative votes
| marcodiego wrote:
| The expression "socialised medicine" sounds way better when
| you call it public health system.
| [deleted]
| nextstep wrote:
| But also not surprising because despite the decades of
| restrictions which have limited Cuba's ability to import
| medical supplies, they have one of the best medical systems in
| the world.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Maybe it is not that hard to run a basic medical system if
| some leadership, administrative proves, and money put
| together?
| crakenzak wrote:
| > they have one of the best medical systems in the world.
|
| citation needed
| ruined wrote:
| https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/5/08-030508/en/
|
| structurally, it's a good target model. materially,
| capitalist embargoes have prevented import of drugs and
| equipment that isn't already manufactured locally.
|
| https://theconversation.com/is-the-cuban-healthcare-
| system-r...
|
| they also provide medical education for free, even to
| foreign citizens.
|
| notably, che guevara was a doctor before he was a soldier,
| and this probably informed the cuban communist party's
| healthcare policy.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| World Bank puts Cuba's public health statistics largely on
| par with the United States, at about one-tenth the per-
| capita cost. Of course, compared to other developed
| countries, the USA hardly delivers great healthcare to its
| population. So Cuba might not be a top country for
| healthcare in the world, but what they do have is
| impressive given the circumstances.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| > World Bank puts Cuba's public health statistics largely
| on par with the United States, at about one-tenth the
| per-capita cost.
|
| The average Cuban makes in the neighborhood of $30 a
| month. Cuban doctors make about $70 a month. US doctors
| make something around $30,000 a month.
|
| As it turns out, it is much easier to have a cheap
| medical system when you pay basically nothing for labor.
| However, this is a feature of a system which is otherwise
| rather unenviable.
| mping wrote:
| You imply that the bulk of the costs are labour costs,
| but medical invoices in the US suggest otherwise.
| morelisp wrote:
| The unenviable part is the $30-70 range, not the 2x
| income spread.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Indeed. We would surely be living in fantastical,
| glorious times if the US median income were to rise to
| ~$180,000. (In real figures, of course, not just
| hyperinflation.) I believe this would require us to
| triple GNP, if not more.
|
| I am almost entirely in favor of this proposal, except
| that it would probably be preferable in such a case to
| admit immigrants from less prosperous parts of the world
| who would go on to earn substantially less than that.
| This would bring the overall income figure down, but
| would still be a major win for the world's overall
| prosperity.
| slim wrote:
| Cubans are paid in peso. And what they get paid is enough
| to provide for what they want. Granted what they want is
| limited by the limited choice of consumer goods. On the
| other hand consumerism is worse
| saiya-jin wrote:
| HN at its best... this is known for a very long time. I
| don't know how much GDP budget they put into medical
| system, or what other miracle they managed to perform long
| term, but its true.
|
| Of course its relative - is it better than Switzerland? Of
| course not, but comparing to peers in 3rd world, they are
| absolutely stellar. Cheap/free advanced medicine and care,
| tons of foreign missions around the world.
|
| I recall from cold war, Cuban medical scientists and
| doctors were regarded as top notch in eastern bloc and many
| exchange missions were done to get some of that to other
| parts of the world. From Cuban perspective, cold war didn't
| end with fall of USSR
| [deleted]
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Cuba legitimately has one of the best medical education
| systems in the world. It's one of the regime's successes.
|
| On the other hand, many of these doctors are sent to work
| in Cuba's allies, where most of their pay goes to the Cuban
| government. At home, their medical system goes through some
| pretty rough patches from time to time, and you have people
| who need to turn to the black market to buy the iodine
| necessary for disinfection of their own surgeries.
| rubatuga wrote:
| I heard it's mid-tier, but nowhere near "the best". For
| example, developing countries would appreciate it if Cuban
| doctors came to volunteer, but they aren't at the standard
| of US doctors.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I believe the quality and breadth of Cuba's medical system
| rises to the level of conventional wisdom[1][2].
|
| Edit: I forgot to link statistics for the country itself,
| not just the doctors they send abroad. They perform
| admirably against both the U.S. and most European
| countries[3].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internatio
| nalism
|
| [2]: https://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Healt
| h_stat...
| belltaco wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/
| pessimizer wrote:
| The citation is the first result of any search related to
| Cuba and medicine on any search engine.
| zeusly wrote:
| Here's a ranking from the WHO:
| https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf
|
| 39 out of 191, 2 places behind the US.
| SettembreNero wrote:
| While being free of charge
| w0de0 wrote:
| It well-known that Cuba has an impressive healthcare system
| and does not particularly need to be cited unless specific
| claims are made. Cuba is famous, for instance, for
| exporting doctors to other nations.
|
| In any case, here is a short paper showing Cuba's
| healthcare outcomes are comparable to Canada and US: https:
| //globalhealth.washington.edu/sites/default/files/50%2...
| waitHowsThat wrote:
| Why is being comparable to the US considered good? Our
| physicians are incredibly expensive, artificially scarce,
| and corrupt.
|
| In any other conversation, being comparable to the United
| States healthcare sounds atrocious.
| paulcole wrote:
| > they have one of the best medical systems in the world.
|
| This feels like a specific claim being made.
|
| For everyone downvoting me, just want you to know that
| yellow is one of the worst colors in the world.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Most of the reports I've read about Cuba's healthcare
| metrics are heavily reliant on trusting data released by
| the Cuban government (particularly around life expectancy
| and infant mortality), not subject to independent audit.
| Haven't looked closely at the sources in your citation,
| though.
| slim wrote:
| There are scientific publications every year by cuban
| doctors that corroborate that data. None disputes the
| superiority of cuban health system
| tshaddox wrote:
| Is this not the case with all basic metrics of every
| nation?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| No: NGOs, academia, a free press... None of these to my
| knowledge are able to operate in Cuba with what most of
| us would consider trustable autonomy from the government
| in publishing information that constitutes an independent
| research.
| sdfin wrote:
| Cuban doctors' don't seem to be very happy with that,
| according to the NYT and BBC:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-
| cub...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48214513
| runarberg wrote:
| The same applies for Iceland. Nurses keep striking,
| doctors call for more funding, health care experts keep
| complaining about lack of facilities. Yet Iceland has one
| of the best health care system in the world.
|
| Be it a capitalist country like Iceland or a socialist
| like Cuba, with enough funding and an educated workforce
| you can run a pretty successful healthcare system,
| despite the fact that it could be better. And perhaps
| that is precisely why the workers in a successful
| healthcare system complain. They are educated enough to
| know how it could be improved even further.
| sdfin wrote:
| Your answer is not related to the content of the
| articles.
| LightG wrote:
| While important to you and me, the attitude of the
| doctors is not in question here, just the level of Cuba's
| medical expertise.
| chizhik-pyzhik wrote:
| Cuba has a life expectancy of 78.8, just under the United
| States' 79.1. Their infant mortality rate 5.1 deaths per
| 1000 births, slightly better than 6.5 in the US. Cuba also
| has the highest rate of physicians per citizen in all of
| latin america, and has a huge medical diplomacy progam,
| sending doctors all over the world.
|
| It's a pretty controversial topic, though- https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Contrasting...
| waitHowsThat wrote:
| Just a reminder that the Physician Cartel in the United
| States is downright dangerous.
|
| I wonder if a lawyer could do a class action lawsuit
| against the AMA members. Drug addictions and unaffordable
| healthcare is some sort of manslaughter.
| [deleted]
| xeromal wrote:
| It's widely known. No citation needed.
| seaorg wrote:
| Pretty good for a brutal police state?
| aviraldg wrote:
| Yeah, I was surprised USA was able to come up with a COVID
| vaccine too, given the recent reports of government
| corruption, armed insurrection and police brutality.
| seaorg wrote:
| If you think our police are brutal, I would love to see you
| hold a political rally in Cuba. You are so precious. Might
| want to reflect on that nasty little caste system you have
| benefitted from before throwing stones.
| [deleted]
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Last week an Argentinian news(/infotainment) program covered a
| Cuban TV PSA for a vaccine they'll soon be administering to
| kids. Besides the nationalistic bent (which I'm personally OK
| with, given the circumstances), one of the tidbits I found
| interesting is they mention it requires three jabs.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqUq6kO8DyA
| ncann wrote:
| Every year for the last 30 years or so the UN General Assembly
| calls for US to end Cuba embargo. Every single year the US
| along with Israel vote against it, being the only 2 out of
| nearly 200 or so countries.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| If there were any justice in the world we'd be embargoing
| Israel and not Cuba :/
|
| Or better yet embargo nobody. But as long as Israel and Saudi
| Arabia (together with the US empire, of course) keep
| maintaining the blockade in Yemen
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Yemen |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-
| led_intervention...), the least we could do is return the
| "favor" by embargoing Israel. Per Wikipedia (I didn't
| validate this number at all), the 2018 famine in Yemen led to
| the deaths of 85,000 children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
| Famine_in_Yemen_(2016%E2%80%93...)
|
| (I'm aware that the above will never happen, for the same
| reason we're involved in all these conflicts in the first
| place. But a man can dream, right?)
| bpodgursky wrote:
| You know there are wildly worse regimes than Israel right?
| Why Israel, and not any of the oppressive sub-Saharan
| African governments? Why not Myanmar? Why not China,
| embarking on a literal genocide?
|
| I think the thing to learn from the Cuba experience is that
| embargos are usually ineffective mechanisms for enacting
| regime change, because it just reinforces the "us vs them"
| mindset. If there truly was a concerted international
| embargo of Israel, Netanyahu would be in power another 30
| years.
| pokot0 wrote:
| I think people focus on Israel b/c it is the result of an
| invasion and expulsion of natives. Just like the US and
| all America.... People tend to think that internal
| matters of a country should not be addressed too much
| (like many of the countries you mentioned). It's hard to
| believe you dont understand such a simple concept and
| it's hard for me to not consider that part of your
| comment pure rethoric.
|
| I agree on your comment on the ineffectiveness of
| embargos. Unfortunately the solution to the Israel
| problem is to not create Israel in the first place. At
| this point, the damage is done. That's why governments
| (looking at you US) should think more before deploying
| military (vietnam, iraq, afghanistan, .... )
| xyzelement wrote:
| // expulsion of natives
|
| Just wanted to point out, Jews are native to Israel.
| rideontime wrote:
| By what definition of "native"?
| xyzelement wrote:
| I don't understand the question. By what definition of
| native are native Americans native to America? Jews lived
| in Israel prior to expulsion by the Romans
| pokot0 wrote:
| You have to go very far back in time to consider them
| natives but I never said they weren't.
| vogon_laureate wrote:
| It was not "an invasion". Jews were fleeing genocide and
| arrived as refugees. Then Jews in the Middle East and
| North Africa came soon after fleeing pogroms, expulsions
| and dhimmitude.
|
| As for "expulsion" 22% of Israeli citizens are Arabs and
| further more are Druze, Circassian, Bedouin, etc. with
| equal rights. An Arab party is literally part of the
| Government right now. If you're going to try to derail a
| topic with ignorant nonsense about Israel, at least get
| your facts right.
| pokot0 wrote:
| Israel is a state. Not some refugees accepted in another
| state. The fact that the State of Israel was forced to
| unwilling Arabs is what causing all the distress and what
| I call an "invasion". Effectively some land that was part
| of a state has been subtracted to that state and declared
| to be part of a different state by force.
|
| You questioning my facts shows you are a rude person. I
| shared my opinion and you insult me. Wanna come invade my
| house and claim it yours maybe?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| How do you think every other state in history was formed?
|
| You only dislike the sausage here because you can see it
| being made.
| pokot0 wrote:
| Agreed. Slightly different topic in my opinion but here
| is how I see it.
|
| You can be a brutal savage and you conquer land and just
| claim it yours. All good.
|
| At some point you evolve into a modern civilization and
| start following the rules of law, basic human rights and
| those sort of things.
|
| That is the moment when you cannot just conquer land by
| force because it goes against your own values.
|
| Israeli was formed by countries whose values would not
| allow its creation. It was just extremely convenient for
| them and everyone looked somewhere else.
| vogon_laureate wrote:
| Israel became a state by UN mandate, not by "invasion".
| Palestinians were also offered a state by the same
| mandate. They (and surrounding Arab states) rejected it
| and five armies literally invaded.
|
| Facts don't belong to anyone. They are just facts. You
| calling my refugee grandparents fleeing the Holocaust
| "invaders" is arguably ruder than me calling your fact-
| free nonsense, er nonsense. Cope.
| pokot0 wrote:
| Friend, you are obviously emotional about this and I
| understand. But:
|
| - "Israel became a state by UN mandate" : I believe that
| mandate was an invasion. I believe I was clear. That's my
| opinion. I am happy to discuss it and change my mind if
| convinced. You insulted me and gave me 0 food for
| thought.
|
| - "Facts don't belong to anyone": You were the one who
| said "get your facts right". You are incoherent in a
| matter of 2 messages. That said remember that facts are
| not easy to find, as it's very clear lately. So, while
| they don't belong to anyone, for a lot of things we will
| never have access to them and we have to rely on
| opinions.
|
| - "You calling my refugee grandparents fleeing the
| Holocaust "invaders"" : I didn't. And ofc this is macro
| political argument, not a personal matter. I already told
| you what I consider an invasion. The UN mandate. The
| Holocaust was a great tragedy and I believe the victims
| had to be taken care properly. I just think that the way
| it was done created decades of wars and suffering and
| have shown how inadequate of a solution that was.
|
| I am not gonna answer any more messages though. It's not
| really helping anyone and I think you are extremely
| emotional about this. This is not the kind of
| conversation I was looking forward or what I want to
| engage in.
|
| I wish you all the best! I mean it!
| ghayes wrote:
| I tend to feel this is off topic for the conversation. The
| OP discussed the embargo on Cuba which relates to the
| article, but this comment really focuses on Israel that is
| irrelevant to the vaccine conversation.
| vogon_laureate wrote:
| Israel does not "maintain the blockade in Yemen". It has
| very little to do with that conflict at all. Why attempt to
| derail a conversation about Cuba's healthcare with this?
| jdjsksms wrote:
| Sorry that you want all the Jews in Israel to die, but some
| of us think they have a right to live. Hamas, the
| "Palestinian" "government," thinks all Jews everywhere
| should die. In contrast Israel has Arabs in government.
|
| You can call it a blockade, but Israeli Jews would simply
| be killed in the scenario you're advocating for. All of
| them. You are very literally advocating genocide of the
| Jews. Fuck you.
|
| This website gets more anti semitic and further Left
| everyday.
|
| BDS is a genocidal position. If you're going to take that
| position, at least be honest about your hatred of Jews.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| For the Israeli sympathizers: The west put you in the
| middle east as a military base after the fall of the
| ottoman empire, not out of care for your lives. Colonizing
| the middle east with Jews and not re-integrating them in
| Europe was a form of cleansing. Two birds with one stone
| given what is happening in Palestine.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Maybe the blockade has been an accidental blessing. Cuba has
| done a damn good job with these vaccines. They have good
| healthcare and education. The "standard of living" is lower,
| but I'm sure you get used to it in a month. People seem to
| get along. And it's a beautiful island in the Caribbean.
| Looks kinda like paradise to me.
| melling wrote:
| We were on our way...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_thaw
| luiscape wrote:
| I see no linked evidence therein; to either clinical trial
| results or equivalent accredited sources. Sounds like good news,
| but without any accompanying evidence this is just random click-
| bait.
| perlgeek wrote:
| At least the early news report I have read about the
| Biontech/Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines didn't have links to
| the scientific studies either. This seems to be pretty standard
| for new these days :-(
|
| Even if the effectiveness number doesn't pan out to 92%, every
| working vaccine is another useful tool in the toolbox. I could
| imagine that many South- and Middle American countries have
| higher trust in Cuban than in US or European vaccines.
| vanisher93 wrote:
| Nah, not really, don't believe those numbers, I'm from there, I
| know this is just political BS. Family and friends (some of them
| fully vaccinated) still struggle with COVID.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > The best proof is the fact that 80% of all of Cuba's vaccines
| are produced in the country itself, Moya said. He was not
| surprised by the high efficacy of Abdala, saying it was simply
| the logical consequence of a health care system that had been
| performing steadily well for decades.
|
| It is impressive that a country like Cuba, subject to a long-
| lasting USA economic embargo, is able to keep a healthy health
| care system. More impressive if you compare child mortality (U5M
| under 5 years old) rates below 5.5 per 1000 live births, only
| bested in the Americas by Canada.
|
| I hope that the vaccine works as expected. To stop new mutations
| to appear so fast we depend on having as much world population
| vaccinated as possible.
| mmsimanga wrote:
| It really is a great achievement. As an African I hope our
| leaders are taking inspiration from the Cubans. If we put our
| minds to it we should also be able to produce our own vaccine.
| marcodiego wrote:
| I think that is what happens when there are few opportunities
| on public services for corruption or exorbitant profit:
| efficiency soars. Actually "exorbitant profit" in critical
| areas may not be that different from corruption, nevertheless.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > "exorbitant profit" in critical areas may not be that
| different from corruption, nevertheless.
|
| I agree. In a capitalist country an "exorbitant profit" for a
| long time is a failure of the system. Why nobody else is
| producing the same service if there is so much profit to be
| gain? And, if there is competition, why is not shrinking that
| margins to compete?
|
| Capitalism is great when there are many small competitors
| that need to push quality up or prices down. If you only have
| 1 big corporation dominating each market, that's just
| communism with extra steps. The economy is just a planned
| economy and no competition nor capitalism is happening.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Monopoly is what happens when capitalism is not working
| right. Of course, that is not the single source of
| monopoly, but it should not exist when capitalism works
| correctly.
|
| There are probably many people who dream of capitalism as a
| chance to become a billionaire, not only such a possibility
| is very small, it actually frequently unfair: you need much
| more than honest merit to become one. The best part of
| capitalism is how it is a good system for the _buyer and
| the costumer_ not for the seller or producer.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I think whether your statement is correct or not depends
| on how you define "capitalism working right"
|
| In a purely free market with no outside checks,
| monopolies are very common and almost inevitable. As Adam
| Smith says in Wealth of Nations:
|
| > People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for
| merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a
| conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to
| raise prices.
|
| Effective regulation is needed to prevent monopolies and
| cartels.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > I think whether your statement is correct or not
| depends on how you define "capitalism working right"
|
| I agree, even I will say that it depends on how do you
| define "capitalism".
|
| > Effective regulation is needed to prevent monopolies
| and cartels.
|
| That's why regulations are and always have been part of
| capitalism.
|
| A " purely free market with no outside checks" is Neo-
| liberalism or anarchy, even if there has been a push to
| label anything to the left of Neo-liberalism as
| "communism". Such a push have gained a lot of traction,
| and I see that many people in the general public thinks
| that Neo-liberalism = Capitalism, that it is not the
| case.
|
| So, maybe the definition of capitalism is changing. And
| maybe the push have succeed and now "capitalism working
| right" just means the rich getting richer and has nothing
| to do with the original work of Adam Smith. That would be
| sad, thou. Capitalism is a good system as defined by Adam
| Smith, Neo-liberalism is just a pantomime that promotes
| authoritarianism dressed as free-trade.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Ok, then I agree with you. I was worried that what most
| people hear when they see "capitalism" is unregulated
| markets.
| chillwaves wrote:
| A socialist worker model of co-ops can provide competitive
| marketplaces as well.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > A socialist worker model of co-ops can provide
| competitive marketplaces as well.
|
| Yes, co-ops are also a recognized type of organization in
| capitalist countries. They exist all over the world in
| and compete in the markets where they participate.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Indeed - nothing non-capitalist about co-ops. If a
| company wants to decide to structure its ownership that
| way then why not?
| streamofdigits wrote:
| The fact that it is a different type of vaccine seems quite
| significant
| lvs wrote:
| It is a 3-dose protein vaccine. [1]
|
| "The second of these candidates and the fourth from Cuba uses
| yeast as a receptor binding domain protein and alumina as an
| adjuvant." [2]
|
| I suspect there is a translation issue here. I would hope this
| means they are recombinantly expressing some portion of the RBD
| in yeast, not that they are using yeast as a vector.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/americas/cuba-
| vacci...
|
| [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4654/rr-6
| vanisher93 wrote:
| Not really, I'm from there and I can totally assure this is just
| political BS. Family and friends (some of them fully vaccinated)
| are still struggling with the virus.
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