What I’m getting from this is that the NHS has been shafted so much that they can’t even give these out for free or even at a heavily discounted rate. They even raised the lower age limit from 50 to 65 so there’s even less people able to get it for free.
I’d be fine with paying for a booster, but £100 seems a bit steep for tiny bit of liquid in a tube. What does it think it is? Printer ink?
The flu jab’s normally less than £15, depending on where you get it (and £0 if you’re old or vulnerable enough).
That’s the price for the US I think. It doesn’t give a price for the UK. Google tells me that flu jabs in the US cost around $70 without insurance. Like you said, flu jabs here are £10-15 for those not eligible for free ones. If the covid jabs follow the same pattern they shouldn’t be more than £20. At least I really hope that’s the case, £100 a shot will surely out-price 50%+ of people that pay for flu jabs.
You are right - I clearly missed the “in the US” bit of the paragraph!
[Edit] or I read the TLDR bot version, which omitted this information
@fakeman_pretendname @merridew
None of them are £0
We buy them in bulk, and pay for most through general taxation, efficiently.
The COVID vaccines are made by actually more expensive and difficult techniques/ologies, which are available in new facilities of more limited extent.
Expect the products of those techs to become more plentiful and cheaper, and the difference may get below the order of magnitude. Not to parity.
So those who have the cash can protect themselves and their families, those without just have to take the risk. And of course it’s those who travelling on public transport more often and work in big offices/hospitality/retail that won’t be able to afford, and those who work till they are older.
I pay £8 to have a supermarket flu jab each year…is (almost) cheaper than buying a pack of sudafed. Why get ill and treat symptom if can prevent
For sale?
What better way to decide who lives and who dies than the invisible hand of the free market? \s
How’s this any different to flu at this point? I’ll admit, vulnerable people should get them for free like flu jabs, but everyone doesn’t need a free booster anymore.
Are flu shots not offered for free to the elderly in the UK? Do they have to actually buy them?
That’s not an appropriate saying in this context at all, unless you are an antivaxxer.
The current criteria for qualifying for an NHS winter COVID vaccine are far stricter than the criteria for the NHS flu vaccine.
If you are asthmatic, you can easily be considered vulnerable enough to need the flu vaccine, but still not qualify for the COVID vaccine.
@merridew You might find it helpful to see this as lining up the whole population, of the world, in ranks, ordered by how useful or urgent it is to immunise them.
You have enough doses for fewer ranks than are there. You have more doses of flu vaccine than of COVID.
In what order have you put your ranks?
Are the ranks identical for the 2 (and several other) vaccines?
You may care to imagine being in rank n+1
Why should you be swapped with someone in rank n?
No, I don’t see that as particularly helpful.
Global annual influenza vaccine manufacturing capacity is around 1.68 billion doses. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10309624/
Pfizer alone can churn out 4 billion COVID doses annually. https://www.pfizer.com/science/coronavirus/vaccine/manufacturing-and-distribution
I eat more than the minimum required to live despite others living in poverty, and I use more energy than the minimum despite others living in poverty, and I bet you do too. I’m not going to pretend that refusing to get privately vaccinated against COVID is going to change anything except my risk of serious adverse outcomes from exposure to COVID.
@merridew Interesting paper. On COVID I didn’t see the 4 billion in there, but I didn’t do adding up, either.
I’ve ignored all the vaccines that are not mRNA for assorted reasons, but they must be potentially useful still.
On Influenza, I think the capacity is greatly more than that, but much of it is potential and/or used for other purposes. Given a 1919-like strain we could ramp it up rapidly.
