invisible

’Enough’?

Could you name which countries are allowing vaccinated people skip quarantine? I know two - Iceland and Georgia.

sfgiants13

I wasn't referring to countries that are just allowing vaccinated travelers to skip quarantine. I'd go back to places like Turkey, Serbia, Brazil, etc. Ones that are already open to all. Just not without a vaccine.

For the moment I'll tolerate the testing requirements et. al. I'm pretty desperate to travel. It was a big part of my life pre covid and being stuck at home for the past year has taken a toll on me.

lobo411

A vision of the future for Americans? Who needs a vax passport when you've got herd immunity?

https://news.yahoo.com/turkey-plans-...164725373.html

exp

I’m actually more suspicious of countries with minimal or no requirements than those which impose some requirements.

Last year Croatia had very liberal requirements and I believe they had outbreaks. Also the Balkan countries had reported low case rates but in retrospect, those numbers were suspect.

MaxVO

Check out Florida. There was very little covid theatrics, yet the state is doing better than the US average. I guess warm climate didn't hurt either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/u...a-booming.html

GUWonder

Some countries don't want test results and/or antibody tests to be part of such "immunity passports". That indicates that it has come up to include these kind of things in some "immunity passports".

The UAE has been giving some of its inhabitants one of the Chinese vaccines, so I would assume that they will accept at least those vaccines that they have been allowing domestically. That said, I think most countries -- if they even get around to demanding an "immunity passport" from visitors -- will just come around to accepting vaccinated visitors from other places even if those foreign visitors used a vaccine that isn't approved for domestic administration.

i0wnj00

https://pharmaphorum.com/news/russia...covid-19-shot/
This article should answer both questions whether the US FDA or EMA for the EU, at least for the Sputnik V vaccine. I doubt the Chinese would bother with getting US FDA approval for their vaccines considering widespread ant-Asian sentiment expressed or trust issues in the general public that wouldn't line up to take up such a vaccines and an Biden Administration expressing misgivings on certain issues with China.

At the US FDA can look into companies they are familiar with and have facilities inside the United States they can inspect. It's easier to go after companies like AZ, Moderna, Pfizer, Novavax and J&J if something with vaccines goes horribly wrong, you can't do that with the ones made in Russia or China.

The EMA may entertain using vaccines from Russia and China, but the US FDA is very risk adverse.

Other countries have their own standards so they are free to decide what data sets work for them, if they trust data from the US FDA and the EMA, then good for them. No country should rely on standards and decisions made from the US FDA or EMA to make the ultimate decisions, let alone have an increased confidence in a particular vaccine regarding the health and safety of their citizens.

The US FDA, for an example doesn't care for what the EMA or WHO does, they want datasets from participants from inside the United States, so Oxford-AZ will need to present their own data from US trials for consideration. Even J&J/Janssen and Pfizer-BioNTech had to present data from US trials even through they had assistance with their European partners from regulated countries.

It will be a difficult hurdle (or impossible) to get trial participants inside the United States to test out Russian and Chinese vaccinations.

If some HK residents will be getting Pfizer then its assumed it was approved and acquired legitimately.

The approval of what vaccines are approved for use and get distributed is mainly for the benefit for their own citizens and not so much how or where other citizens get their vaccine. They can easily mandate that foreign visitors use a mask in public spaces or anywhere outside their hotel or place of lodging.

MaxVO

Sputnik V vaccine and the existing raw data were made available to British researchers for testing & analysis. Their verdict was quite favorable.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55900622
I get the impression that Sputnik's main weakness was manufacturing inability of rapid scale-up.

exp

Has Putin gotten the Sputnik V shots?

or his daughter?

catocony

US FDA won't approve the Russian or Chinese vaccines because 1) those vaccines aren't needed as we have 3 already and Astra-Zeneca will probably be approved at some point. And 2), I seriously doubt if the Russian or Chinese vaccines would ever be imported so it's moot to even try and get authorization.

i0wnj00

His daughter got it, in August. She was one of the first ones to get vaccinated with Sputnik V
Putin is either doesn't want to get vaccinated or is going to wait.

exp

They announced that she was going to get it

That was before any trial data, which they only recently released.

did she actually get it?

seigex

Politico reported she had, grain of salt and all that.

"Russia on Tuesday became the first country to officially register a coronavirus vaccine and declare it ready for use, despite international skepticism. President Vladimir Putin said that one of his daughters has already been inoculated."

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...aughter-393455

MaxVO

There was a brief period when the upper echelon of Russian ruling class got advance access to the vaccine. That was a status symbol, and nobody else in the world had such an option at the time. So it's pretty believable that they all jumped to claim such vanity object.

invisible

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/au...-travel-bubble