Independent doesn't necessarily mean unbiased. See Avi or FJ as an example from either side.
Truedogz wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:58 am
I reported earlier on the conversations I had with contacts in New Zealand and they told me that the offer that Pfizer made to the kiwis and us had an important string attached: the agreement to exclusively use Pfizer as its vaccine supply.
They will not make this public - at least at this time - as both countries still depend on Pfizer. Supporting this is Pfizer's 'offer' was 40 million - our entire requirement. The Kiwis told me that Pfizer was pretty aggressive about it and took out their wrath on them in the fallout from the WTO motion I mentioned previously.
Other than from you on here, I have not heard this piece of information repeated anywhere. Without trying to pass a value judgement on the validity of this information, I would suggest that it were true, the Prime Ministers office would be howling about it at every opportunity they can have.
This entire conversation it taking place under the assumption that your 'mate in NZ' has provided a piece of information that as far as I can tell, nobody else has and isn't actually sourcable from anywhere.Truedogz wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:58 am
Both Australia and New Zealand were going down the same path. Buy Pfizer initially as it was going to be the first approved and provides rapid protection but is difficult to transport and store, is very expensive and represents the first broadscale rollout of this style of vaccine = use it for front line workers. Buy AZ when it becomes available later, a more traditional vaccine but slower acting which Australia could manufacture that is easy to transport and store and is more cost effective = use it for the balance of the population.
Any rational person would consider that to be a sound strategy with lower risks. Where would Australia be now if we had taken the Pfizer offer with strings attached and it developed serious issues? At the very least we would have had a significant delay to the rollout while we tried to find an alternate vaccine.
I am not for one moment trying to say the Morrison government did a perfect job with the vaccine rollout which they haven't or that they were totally blameless in their negotiations with Pfizer. But the original choices on how to use Pfizer and AZ were actually sound in the circumstance. It was the selection of their other other vaccine options that can be seriously questioned and the mechanics of the initial rollout left a lot to be desired.
Rational strategy would be to acquire enough of every vaccine as soon as possible for every eligible person in the country, at an absolute fraction of the cost of the lockdowns we've experienced since then. I would guess the total cost of the lockdowns would be over 1000 times the cost of buying an pair of AZ, Moderna, Pfizer and whatever else they possibly can to cater for the inevitable tribalised nonsensical bullsh1t that get's pushed by the media every time the PM's office messes something up, which seems to be literally everything they touch.
Taking the highest of each price paid by different countries for vaccines. Pfizer is $19.50 US / dose. AZ is 5.25 US. Moderna is $15.
52 Million Pfizers, at the highest price payed in the world, is just on $1 billion.
52 million AZ's is $273m
52 Million Moderna is $780.
This is assuming every person in the country gets two of everything regardless of age / underlying conditions whatever and it's still only just over $2 billion. We wouldn't actually need anywhere near that much. What's this lockdown costing us again? A bill a week or so?