The COVID-19 Vaccines Shouldn’t Have Been Free

Published

4 months ago

June 2, 2024

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In a recent essay in the journal Monash Bioethics Review, oncologist Vinay Prasad and health researcher Alyson Haslam provide a comprehensive after-the-fact assessment of the federal government’s rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Their basic takeaway is that the vaccines were a “scientific success”tarnished by flawed federal vaccine policy.

The two argue the tremendous benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines for the elderly were undercut by government guidance and messaging that pushed vaccines on the young, healthy, and previously infected when data suggested that wasn’t worthwhile (and was in some cases counterproductive).

Worse still, the government even pushed vaccine mandates when it was increasingly clear the vaccines did not stop COVID-19 transmission, they argue.

To correct these errors for future pandemic responses, Prasad and Haslam recommend performing larger vaccine trials and collecting better data on vaccine performance in lower-risk populations. They also urge policy makers to be more willing to acknowledge the tradeoffs of vaccination.

That’s sound advice. We’ll have to wait and see if the government adopts it come the next pandemic.

There is one policy that they don’t mention and doesn’t totally depend on the government getting better at judging the risks of new vaccines: Charge people for them.

Had the government not provided COVID-19 vaccines for free and shielded vaccine makers and administrators from any liability for adverse reactions, prices could have better rationed vaccine supply and better informed people about their risks and benefits.

Without prices, people were instead left with flawed government recommendations, incentives, and rationing schemes.

Those who recall early 2021 will remember the complex, often transparently silly eligibility criteria state governments set up to ration scarce vaccine supplies. This often involved prioritizing younger, healthier, often politically connected “essential workers” over elderly people.

Prasad and Haslam criticize this as a government failure to prioritize groups at most risk of dying from COVID-19.

“While the UK prioritized nursing home residents and older individuals…the US included essential workers, including young, resident physicians,” write Prasad and Haslam. “Health care workers face higher risks of acquiring the virus due to occupation (though this was and is offset by available personal protective equipment), but this was less than the elevated risk of death faced by older individuals.”

Yet if the government hadn’t assigned itself the role of distributing vaccines for free, it wouldn’t have been forced into this position of rationing scarce vaccine supplies.

Demand for the vaccine is a function of the vaccine’s price. Since the vaccine’s price was $0, people who stood to gain comparatively less from vaccination and people for whom a vaccine would be lifesaving were equally incentivized to receive it.

Consequently, everyone rushed to get in line at the same time. The government then had to decide who got it first and predictably made flawed decisions.

Had vaccine makers been left to sell their product on an open market (instead of selling doses in bulk to the federal government to distribute for free), the elderly and those most at risk of COVID-19 would have been able to outbid people who could afford to wait longer. Perhaps more lives could have been saved.

Over the course of 2021, the supply of vaccines outgrew demand.

At the same time, as Prasad and Haslam recount, an increasing number of people (particularly young men) were developing myocarditis as a result of vaccination. Nevertheless, the government downplayed this risk, continued to urge younger populations to get vaccinated, and failed to collect data about the potential risks of vaccination.

That’s all a failure of the government policy. Even if the government was slow to adjust its recommendations, prices could have played a constructive role in informing people about their own risk-reward tradeoff of getting vaccinated.

If a 20-year-old man who’d already had COVID-19 had to spend something to get vaccinated, instead of nothing, fewer would have. Prasad and Haslam argue that would have been the right call healthwise.

Without prices, that hypothetical 20-year-old’s decision was informed mostly by government guidance, and, later, government mandates.

The government compounded this lack of prices by giving liability shields to vaccine makers. As it stands right now, no one is able to sue the maker of a COVID-19 vaccine should they have an adverse reaction. (Unlike standard, non-COVID vaccines, people are also not allowed to sue the government for compensation for the vaccine injuries.)

If pharmaceutical companies had to charge individual consumers to make money off their vaccines, and if those prices had to reflect the liability risks of the side effects some number of people would inevitably have, consumers would have been even better informed about the risks and rewards of vaccination.

One might counter that individual consumers aren’t in a position to perform this risk-reward calculation on their own.

That ignores the ways that other intermediaries in a better position to evaluate the costs and benefits of vaccination could contribute to the price signals individuals would use to make their own decisions.

One could imagine an insurance company declining to cover COVID-19 vaccines for the aforementioned healthy 20-year-old while subsidizing their elderly customers to get the shot. (This is, of course, illegal right now. The Affordable Care Act requiresmost insurance plansto cover the costs of vaccination for everyone.)

Instead, the financial incentives that were attached to vaccination were another part of the federally subsidized vaccination campaign.

State Medicaid programs paid providers bonuses for the number of patients they vaccinated (regardless of how at risk of COVID-19 those patients were). State governments gave out gift cardsto those who got vaccinated and entered them in lotteries to win even bigger prizes.

Leaving it up to private companies to produce and charge for vaccines would have one added benefit: It would make it much more difficult for the government to mandate vaccines or otherwise coerce people into getting them.

One of the things that made it easy for local and state governments to bar the unvaccinated from restaurants and schools was that they also had a lot of free, federally subsidized doses to give away. People didn’t have a real “excuse” not to get a shot.

Had people been required to pay for vaccines, it would have been more awkward and much harder (politically and practically) to mandate that they do so.

Economist Alex Tabarrok likes to say that a “price is a signal wrapped up in an incentive.” They signal crucial information and then incentivize people to act on that information in a rational, efficient way.

By divorcing COVID-19 vaccines from real price signals, we were left with an earnest, government-led vaccination effort. That effort got a lot of lifesaving vaccines to a lot of people.

But it also encouraged and subsidized people to get vaccinated when it was probably not a necessary or even good idea. When not enough people got vaccinated, governments turned to coercive mandates.

Entertainment

Influential artist Sir Michael Craig-Martin says he’s had ‘terrible things’ said about his work

Published

3 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Influential artist Sir Michael Craig-Martin says he's had 'terrible things' said about his work

Sir Michael Craig-Martin is one of the most influential artists of his generation – but he says he’s had “terrible things” said about the work he’s now famous for.

The 83-year-old’s long career is now the subject of a major retrospective opening this weekend at the Royal Academy.

But he told Sky News: “I’ve had terrible things said about all the work that now people think is wonderful… If you can’t survive criticism… you’re in the wrong game.”

The Royal Academy retrospective brings together his life’s work in one show, including his early experimental sculpture, his landmark conceptual work and a new immersive digital work.

While much of Sir Michael’s painting has been dominated with depictions of modern icons, like laptops and iPhones, he says technology has made it “harder for people to look” at his work.

“We’ve become probably the most visual age there’s ever been and at the same time it’s become harder and harder for people to actually look,” he said.

“[Paintings] don’t move – you have to come to them, you have to give them a little time,” he explained, adding that nowadays people are more “used to something that’s doing something for them”.

The subject matter of much of Craig-Martin’s large-scale, vivid colour paintings of everyday objects – from trainers to paperclips, glasses to coffee cups – is universally understood and easily accessible.

“What’s ordinary is what unites everybody,” he explains.

“When you buy a coffee, they give you the cup. You don’t buy the cup, it’s free with the coffee, and yet to make a painting out of it is to give it a certain kind of presence, a certain kind of dignity, a way of looking at it that may be different, to what its value or use is.”

Now in his 80s, Sir Michael’s work has become sought-after around the world. Not only has he proven to be one of the most successful artists of his generation, he’s also been one of the most influential teachers.

In the late 80s, his students at Goldsmiths would go on to be the headline-making Young British Artists, or YBAs as they became known – and they include Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas.

“They were very, very young,” Sir Michael explained. “There were people who said to me that it was very dangerous for them to be having this kind of success because they were so young and my advice to them at the time was ‘if the door opens, it’s best to go through it’.”

Decades before, in 1974, he’d made headlines of his own with a piece called An Oak Tree – now widely considered a landmark moment in the history of conceptual art.

Recreated for the retrospective, provocatively you won’t find any big logs propped up in a gallery as the piece is just a glass of water on a glass shelf.

“People often do say to me… it changed my idea about what I thought art was, what it could be, my relationship, and that’s an amazing thing to be able to say.”

Challenging us all to look with fresh eyes at the ‘ordinary’ all around us, Michael Craig-Martin’s body of work is proof of why he is one of the most extraordinary artists working today.

Michael Craig-Martin is at the Royal Academy in London from 21 September to 10 December.

US

Well-fitted suits, pearls and ‘the same’ red tie: What Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’s fashion tells us about them

Published

3 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Well-fitted suits, pearls and 'the same' red tie: What Donald Trump and Kamala Harris's fashion tells us about them

The style choices of politicians have long been scrutinised by voters and the media.

Women have historically been subject to more inspection for their looks than men.

But all politicians are communicating through their style, according to two experts.

“We receive most of our information, many of us, through screens and through the visuals,” says Hazel Clark, professor of design and fashion at the Parsons School of Design in New York.

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has been leaning into trouser suits.

“The well-fitted suit, the more masculine suit, is telling voters that she is not a politician’s wife, she is not the president’s wife, she is the president,” says Deirdre Clemente, professor of history at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

She wore a dark suit to make her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

The look “gives that sense of the legal profession, judges and authority. I think it was just saying ‘I’m here to be taken seriously, I can be your leader’,” says Ms Clark.

Many of the audience were wearing white, thought to be a reference to the suffragettes, who fought for women to have vote.

“I think there’s a lot of weight in the choice of white in the audience of the DNC that night and her choice of a black suit was a power move,” Ms Clemente said.

Donald Trump has had a consistent style for many years – he’s known for his dark blue suit and silky red tie.

“He seems to have been wearing the same red tie since the 1970s. It seems to have gotten longer,” said Ms Clemente.

“It is his way of projecting power, confidence and stability.”

And his vice presidential pick JD Vance seems to have adapted his style to match.

“It’s putting on a uniform to say we are all one, we are all following this person. I think sameness, perhaps, with the party as well,” said Ms Clark.

“With Trump it’s almost become like a costume now.”

Harris often wears a pearl necklace, a reference to her college sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, which was founded by black women at Howard University.

“Her wearing of the necklace is absolutely a shout-out to all the women who have supported her and that sorority is central to that,” said Ms Clemente.

The vice president is also known for her love of Converse shoes.

The trainers, which are associated with American basketball culture, “are a powerful cultural tool because what she’s saying is these shoes are just like the ones you have in your closet”.

Mr Trump and his supporters often wear the instantly recognisable red Make America Great Again baseball cap.

“The MAGA hat has an incredible amount of power, especially here in battleground states,” said Ms Clemente. “You see MAGA hats all around.”

Baseball caps are “ubiquitous in being used to signify something, it’s like having a slogan on your t-shirt”, says Ms Clark.

One accessory all US politicians are rarely seen without is an American flag pin badge on their lapel, which can be used to show patriotism.

It may also project a message that “we are all fighting for the same team” despite political differences, said Ms Clemente.

UK

‘Dangerously stretched’ Met Police has fewer officers working on unsolved murders

Published

3 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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'Dangerously stretched' Met Police has fewer officers working on unsolved murders

Fewer police officers are working on unsolved murder cases amid warnings the Metropolitan Police is dangerously stretched.

Five officers from the force are moving from a specialist cold case department investigating the 30-year-old murder of Atek Hussain to instead bolster basic command units.

Mr Hussain, 32, was stabbed in the heart as he returned from work in September 1994. He managed to stagger to his home and tell his family that his attackers were Asian before collapsing.

No charges have ever been brought in the case despite two focused appeals by the police on the 10th and 20th anniversaries of his killing.

Mr Hussain’s daughter Yasmin was 10 when she watched her father die in their family home. She told Sky News she had hoped the Met would launch a renewed appeal on the 30th anniversary of his death this week.

“I waited and waited as September approached, hoping they’d say something but all of the officers I’d been dealing with have either retired or moved on, and it seems nobody knows what to do with me,” she said.

“One person told me to call 101.”

The Met told Sky News the case is not currently active. However, no unsolved murder investigation is ever closed and Mr Hussain’s case was last reviewed by its Serious Crime Review Group in August.

“Should any new information come to light, it will be assessed accordingly,” it said in a statement.

“In order to better protect the public, including the prevention of future homicides, we are moving some experienced officers from specialist units to bolster BCU (basic command unit) public protection teams to ensure they have the right skills, experience and capacity.

“The MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) continues to maintain a strong capability to investigate cold case homicides. No unsolved homicide is ever closed and all cases remain under review.”

Clive Driscoll, a former Detective Chief Inspector of the Met Police who finally secured two convictions for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, explains how the forces deal with cold cases.

“Every two years you would review the case to see if there are opportunities. The one that always stands out is forensics opportunities. Forensics moved on while we’ve been talking. So that’s what you would do with a review, you would be looking to see whether or not something has changed from the last time you saw it.”

Mr Driscoll says forces across the country are facing challenges including a shortage of officers and staff, greater scrutiny of the police and an issue with confidence among officers.

“They feel that maybe their job has become harder,” he told Sky News before urging police units to go the extra mile.

“As hard as it may be for a police officer, it can’t be even a slightest comparison of how hard it must be for Mr Hussain’s children who’ve lost their father.”

Recent data shows the annual number of unsolved homicides across Britain has more than doubled since 2010. That is thought to be driven almost entirely by a surge in larger police forces, in particular the Met.

On Wednesday, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the force as “dangerously stretched”, telling an audience at the Police Foundation that a wave of new pressures, a lack of investment, abuse and insults of the police and reduced confidence among officers has left London less safe.

Mr Driscoll warned that failing to properly review unsolved homicides sends a dangerous message.

“We don’t want to send the message out to people that feel they can take the life of a human being and after a certain amount of time ‘oh that’s alright then I’ve got away with it’. The message must always be that if there is an opportunity to affect an arrest, put someone before a court then we will take it. We must always show that we will not forget the victim and also that out there is someone who felt that they can take someone’s life.”

Atek Hussain had spent the evening working at his family-run restaurant in Croydon before arriving home to Burnels Avenue in East Ham at around 2.35am on 18 September 1994.

Officers believe he had just got out of his blue Vauxhall Cavalier and was walking towards his front door when he was attacked and stabbed in the chest.

In the absence of a renewed public plea from the police, Yasmin Hussain has launched her own appeal for help finding her father’s killers.

If you have information that could help police, call 101 or post @MetCC, or to remain 100% anonymous contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.