August 8, 2022

• MonkeyPox vaccine is not as available as you might hope/think.
• Omicron-focused COVID vaccine still in testing stages

The world has forgotten that time is not on our side with things like vaccine production. There is a blind belief that "they" can produce vaccines at a near magical pace to solve any and all issues. This even though we are still in a covid-19 pandemic (reminder: it is now 2022).

The world vaccine supply is not sufficient to provide protection to the world against monkey pox. Poor decisions on roll-out, on supply needs, on what process we are relying on to produce it, and how it is being distributed are of great concern. Again.

European men struggle to access monkeypox jabs

• Some people are travelling abroad to get vaccinated in wake of severe shortages and increasing case numbers

(FT)

And, take this headline from Bloomberg:

Q&A: What You Need to Know About Monkeypox

• Monkeypox risks to broader community remain low, WHO’s Pebody says
• Modes of transmission, duration of protection are still unclear
• Smallpox vaccines helped against Monkeypox; further studies needed
• Vaccination efforts should focus on MSM community: Bausch

For a virus that has been around for a long time and is basically the same as other poxes (cow, small, rabbit, etc) there is a lot we do not know about it and treatments for it.

And, some of the public health decisions in response to limited accessible supply are dubious. For example, thinking one shot of the vaccine is enough to stop the spread.

Inoculations will only start in Italy, for example, this week. Given the protection from the vaccine takes 3-4 weeks, it is only the start of the push back. Contact tracing and quarantines are being rolled out, but it looks like this virus has been circulating for a while undetected.

A total of 4,200 doses have been allocated to regions where caseloads are high, according to the health ministry, with stock left over for emergencies.

Extra doses are expected later in August.

More from Bloomberg expert discussion:

We are seeing a couple countries and localities implement varying dose-sparing approaches due to the very limited number of vaccines currently available, in order to provide a higher level of protection to more people. Such approaches include only giving one dose (of the two-dose regimen) until more vaccine becomes readily available and injecting the vaccine intradermally rather than via intramuscular means, as less of the vaccine would be required and thus it could stretch the amount of available doses. However, there is very limited research on the effectiveness of these approaches and the length of protectiveness they would provide.

A small number of cases of encephalitis have been reported in cases of monkeypox. This is a rare yet recognized complication of infection, which may be more common in groups who are immunosuppressed.

What does this show us? That we must build a movement for a much more robust public vaccine production, distribution, and disease tracking. Vaccines that work need to be publicly produced at public labs based on need, not on market conditions.

Alas, there is no such movement. Governments and populations are simply interested in "buying" doses. Doses that are not available.

• GOP Private Equity Carveout Amendment Approved

The gutting of a bill that was barely going to make a difference is continuing. This amendment is about limiting the taxes private equity firms have to pay if the subsidiaries are not making money (and not if the PE firm's profits are high).

Anyway, it is a drop in the bucket. Lots of money for batteries in cars and heat pumps, but little in the way of investment in real infrastructure to make a difference.

Relying on the market to invest—even if the profit is subsidized—in a recession is bad math compounding bad economics.

Other weird things in the bill? Insulin price caps:

The bill retains a $35 per month for out-of-pocket insulin co-pay under Medicare even though the GOP succeeded in removing the cap for private insurance.

That's right, the Republicans want poor people to die more often from having Diabetes.

Meanwhile, forest fires in California have all but destroyed those forest's carbon sink used to insure its carbon trading system.

One decade of wildfires have destroyed a century's worth of carbon pooling. It was a dubious claim in the first place, but even that is now gone.

These findings indicate that California’s buffer pool is severely undercapitalized and therefore unlikely to be able to guarantee the environmental integrity of California’s forest offsets program for 100 years.

As a result of fires, six forest projects in California’s carbon trading system had released between 5.7mn and 6.8mn tonnes of carbon since 2015, the non-profit research group CarbonPlan estimated. That was at least 95 per cent of the roughly 6mn offsets set aside to insure all forest projects against the risk of fire over a century-long period.

These are "carbon offsets" purchased by companies to allow them to continue to pollute.

Obviously, it has not worked-out the way it was promised.