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Fun with the central limit theorem
n=29K/1.4B

COVID leaves Indians with mounting medical debt

In May, as India's new COVID-19 cases broke global records to reach 400,000 a day, Saurav was put on a ventilator.
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Sharma exhausted his savings paying for an ambulance, tests, medicines and an ICU bed. Then he took out bank loans.As the costs mounted, he borrowed from friends and relatives. Then he turned to strangers, pleading online for help on Ketto, an Indian crowdfunding website. Overall, Sharma says he has paid more than $50,000 in medical bills.
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Even before the pandemic, healthcare access in India was a problem. Indians pay about 63 percent of their medical expenses out-of-pocket. That is typical of many poor countries [BWAH!] with inadequate government services.
"international norms" of vaccine patent licensing
South Korea's health ministry said they have been informed about a production issue with the Moderna vaccine, potentially causing a dent in the country's vaccination drive.
archived EU proposes alternative to IP waiver, focus should be on vaccine production, not patents

PFIZERLEAK: EXPOSING THE PFIZER MANUFACTURING AND SUPPLY AGREEMENT, alleged

by Cat on Tue Jul 27th, 2021 at 10:57:57 PM EST
WTO fails anew to agree Covid jab IP waiver proposal
Rockwell said all countries agreed on the need to ramp up production quickly, but disagreed on how best to achieve the goal.
wut
[WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell] said there was surplus capacity in Senegal, Bangladesh, India, South Africa, Thailand, Morocco and Egypt, but while they might have untapped expertise, they would need to have technology and know-how on producing Covid-19 vaccines.
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Rockwell said the opponents of the idea included European countries, Japan and South Korea.... The negotiations have hit a few particular sticking points, notably the duration of the waiver, the scope in terms of products covered and the TRIPS provisions. Other tricky areas include implementation, and the protection of ["]undisclosed information["], said Rockwell.
Tokyo reports record virus cases days after Olympics begin
Tokyo reported 2,848 new Covid-19 cases, exceeding its earlier record of 2,520 daily cases on Jan. 7. That brings its total to more than 200,000 since the pandemic began last year.

Suga's government has been criticized for what some say is prioritizing the Olympics over the nation's health. His public support ratings have fallen [BWAH!] to around 30% in recent media surveys, and there is little festivity surrounding the Games.
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Japan's vaccination drive began late and slowly, but picked up dramatically in May for several weeks as the supply of imported vaccines stabilized and the government pushed to inoculate more people before the Olympics.

The government says 25.5% of Japanese have been fully vaccinated, still way short of the level believed to have any meaningful impact on reducing the risk for the general population.

by Cat on Wed Jul 28th, 2021 at 02:15:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Covid Vaccines: The "LEAKED" Pfizer Contract
The document was first published by the Albanian independent media outlet Gogo.al back in January, but came to prominence in the Anglosphere three days ago, when Twitter user Ehden posted a long thread breaking down its contents. His account has since been "limited" (we've all been there), but you can read his blog here.
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Stronger evidence can be found on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Health, where they have a (heavily redacted) copy of their "REAL-WORLD EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE COLLABORATION AGREEMENT" with Pfizer (we downloaded a copy of that too, just in case.)
yanno, if "social media" had passing familiarity with contracts in "equity law", read Pfizer-BioNTech's 2019 10-K (which primarily documents material risk disclosures as there was hardly revenue of which to speak before 2020Q1) or paid any attention to 2020 Trump admin PR exhorting limited liability and indemnification in US Congress before the "patent waiver" controversy quashed by Allied forces in the WTO, they wouldn't question the "authenticity" or provenance of these exhibits.  
by Cat on Sat Jul 31st, 2021 at 02:31:09 PM EST
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