Yep, as my own piece says it is, of course, better to get rid of the virus but the current problem variants may well have emerged not from population growth but through individual immunopathology and vaccinate globally now is a moral argument that won't shift the variant picture.
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Just one thing: the emergence of variants from immunocompromised people is a hypothesis that is a long way from proven, and convergent evolution suggests it might not actually be driving the emergence of variants of concern. Also could be both.
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Replying to @angie_rasmussen @zeynep and
To echo others on this thread: Just here to remind that smallpox was eliminated in N. America and Europe more than a decade before the rest of the world...pic.twitter.com/PyocCoDqKo
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Replying to @MoNscience @angie_rasmussen and
...and outside of a handful of small outbreaks, those developed nations remained protected. (Our World In Data has a nice slider map). https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox#number-of-smallpox-cases …pic.twitter.com/GeeYsysPRQ
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Replying to @MoNscience @angie_rasmussen and
...and given the COVID-19 vaccine procurement at the moment, history seems destined to repeat itself with curbing the coronavirus? https://launchandscalefaster.org/COVID-19#Timeline%20of%20COVID%20Vaccine%20Procurement%20Deals …pic.twitter.com/af5bvBH02o
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Replying to @MoNscience @angie_rasmussen and
While I want to put more faith in the generosity of high-income nations...if those leaders wanted equitable control of the outbreak, they wouldn't have hoarded these doses in the first place.
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Replying to @MoNscience @angie_rasmussen and
There is near-universal agreement that they are not motivated by generosity. What this discussion was about is what, if anything, will motivate them to consider other countries' needs.
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Replying to @apoorva_nyc @MoNscience and
If all else fails, we resort to directly appealing to POTUS with a “your legacy” argument. Azar got a national “ending AIDS” program out of it (with Fauci pushing the design). It now gets bipartisan annual funding.
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Replying to @peterstaley @apoorva_nyc and
Biden/Trudeau/Merkel/etc.: "We're acquiring another million-billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine for our citizens." Press: "...but your legacy!" Heck, it couldn't hurt. Count me in!
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Replying to @MoNscience @peterstaley and
Agree, in fact, working on something like that to whatever degree words have weight right now, but I can see a drop in interest in anything abroad as vaccination makes progress here. The variant situation makes it urgent, imo, because of what's happening "there" *right now.*
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And I do think the "legacy" arguments with policy folks and goodwill/moral arguments with ordinary folks have a lot more weight than assumed, though as with anything else, policy folk need to be pushed and vague public support channeled.
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Replying to @zeynep @peterstaley and
Yeah, I want to believe that altruism could be enough incentive. But then I think about climate change and how "do it for our global neighbors" and "do it for the kids" messaging took like 15 years to move the needle...
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Replying to @MoNscience @zeynep and
..and even in that case, the final motivators seemed to be extreme weather events. The world just had its big pandemic event, and we came out the other end with huge disparities in vaccine access...
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