> acting like it‘s a grand humanitarian gesture when the vaccine isn‘t even approved for use in the US.
"Under the agreement, the countries must return any excess doses to the US."
I see 0 problem with this.
> A further 3 million doses are being kept in storage.
Yep no problem with this either...
> In the end, it‘s India, China, Russia and the EU who give the vast majority of countries any chance of vaccinating their most at-risk citizens. I suspect this won‘t be forgotten.
I think you're severely underestimating how quickly the U.S. is vaccinating and how quickly these shipments will hit the rest of the world. There are ~8 billion people on Earth, and the U.S. and U.K. are leading the way [1] in vaccinating their populations. Once the U.S. is fully vaccinated, tens of millions of doses will flow to the rest of the world on behalf of the U.S. Hell, the U.S. has administered almost more doses than Russia, India, and China combined but those are the countries that will save the world? C'mon.
I personally don't understand the "your country shouldn't put its own citizens first" mentality. It's honestly just incompatible with my own world view as we currently see the world. I mean, we need minimum wage increases here in the U.S. - why isn't the E.U. paying? [2]
This notion is just not very reflective of how the world works, or how humans work for that matter. I guess if the E.U. wants to export all its vaccines so E.U. citizens (why do they even have citizenship? why is it even an organization? Why are there even member states?) get them last - that's their prerogative and I'm sure the E.U. voters will support or reject that. In the U.S. and U.K. I think we take the view that you have to put your mask on first before you help someone put theirs on.
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccina...
[2] This notion is easy to dismiss. If you truly believed this you'd feed starving kids in other places instead of your own or any of your friends or relatives. Nobody operates this way so why pretend that nations must?
> Hell, the U.S. has administered almost more doses than Russia, India, and China combined but those are the countries that will save the world? C'mon.
Yes. The US administered those vaccines to people in the US, so it does not save the world. On the other hand, India, one of the countries you ridicule, exported 58 million vaccines, almost twice as many as what they administered locally.[1] The EU has exported 34 million.[2] In comparison, the US is exporting 4 million.[3]
> Once the U.S. is fully vaccinated, tens of millions of doses will flow to the rest of the world on behalf of the U.S.
If we're talking future flows, Indonesia alone is set to receive 140 million doses from China.[4] India is ramping up production from 60-70 million monthly doses to 100 million monthly doses from April.[5] "Tens of millions" of doses from the US is a drop in the ocean compared to that.
Let's be clear here - I haven't ridiculed any country. I'm defending the actions of the U.S. and U.K.
> "Tens of millions" of doses from the US is a drop in the ocean compared to that.
> so it does not save the world
Ok fine. We can let India and China save the world. I don't really care anymore. We'll keep all of our doses since it's just a drop in the ocean and doesn't matter. No wonder so many in America are becoming isolationist and protectionist. I'm so over all day every day just hearing about how awful America is.
"America sucks it can't vaccinate its own people!"
"America sucks it's not donating vaccines to other people in the world!"
Anyway - why exactly was there ever this big competition to see who could export the most doses?
> "Many Indians, however, now want the government to make vaccines available to more of its own people instead of only the elderly and those above 45 suffering from health conditions.
> “The priority of the Modi government is not the state but foreign nations,” Congress said on Twitter, using the tag #IndiaNeedsMoreVaccines and accusing the premier of focusing on “PR over people”." [1]
> India, the world's biggest vaccine maker, has gifted or sold here 59 million locally produced doses compared with 33 million doses given to its own people since its inoculation campaign began in mid-January.
Hmm. I wonder how much those definitely not corrupt Pharma companies made by selling vaccines to other countries instead of giving them to equally at-risk Indians?
Why do people always try and make these situations so black and white?
> The US administered those vaccines to people in the US, so it does not save the world.
The US is part of the world, and vaccinating an American does as much to save the world as vaccinating a non-American. For a country that isn't yet fully vaccinated and isn't vaccinating at the limit of its own logistical capability, the most effective contribution it can make to saving the world is to ramp up internal vaccinations.
> "Tens of millions" of vaccines is a drop in the ocean compared to that.
The US has contracted for production of nearly vaccines for about 200 million more people than there are people in the US, all but 100 million of which are due by July 31.
I don't understand the negative reaction here. A human is a human. The US is still contributing to global vaccinations count heavily and once majority of Americans are inoculated, the world will soon be flush with those doses too. Then there's the fact that Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J were all involved in making them in the first place...
I think the negative reaction comes from thinking that, vaccinating an 80 year old Indonesian is the same as vaccinating a 22 year old American. One has a much higher chance of having a severe, deadly, case COVID than the other.
I think you underestimate a populations capacity for compassion. This is why (some) European countries took on millions of refugees in the last ten years. It‘s also why Romania donated some of their vaccines to Moldova - donated mind you, not loaned.
There‘s also the aspect of soft power. China and Russia are playing this particularly well right now, supplying other nations faster than their own population. This will buy them influence for decades to come.
> This is why (some) European countries took on millions of refugees in the last ten years.
I don't really view this as much in the way of compassion. It's more like that the E.U. is getting old and not having babies and they need more people to pay taxes. It's also counter-productive from a global perspective. You have to fix the reasons these people migrate in the first place.
> China and Russia are playing this particularly well right now, supplying other nations faster than their own population.
Are they? Do you have a link? I saw from the New York Times tracker that China has vaccinated 74 million of their own citizens. Are you saying they've sent more vaccines to the rest of the world than the 74 million they've used on their own? If so color me impressed.
Your point about the vaccine being supplied to other countries is certainly well taken - but the idea that the U.S. and U.K. won't be supplying vaccines (Vaccine Diplomacy) to buy influence as well or in counter moves to Russian and Chinese influence would be naive.
I think a lot of people are suffering from Trump hangover. The U.S. is quickly getting things back together.
Up-to-date data is hard to come by, especially for China I couldn‘t find much concrete.
Russia (based on an article from March 7th: https://www.google.de/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/wire...) had vaccinated 4 million people domestically and exported 2.5 million doses to Argentina, 325k to Hungary and 200k to Mexico. There have been many other other exports reported but most without a concrete number.
> Your point about the vaccine being supplied to other countries is certainly well taken - but the idea that the U.S. and U.K. won't be supplying vaccines (Vaccine Diplomacy) to buy influence as well or in counter moves to Russian and Chinese influence would be naive.
I‘m sure they will. But not before elate summer. And, to exaggerate, people won‘t forget if their grandma died of COVID while college kids were vaccinated in the US.
> And, to exaggerate, people won‘t forget if their grandma died of COVID while college kids were vaccinated in the US.
Likewise, Americans who pay taxes and live in America and expect America to defend them and guard their welfare and safety won't forget if their college kid dies of COVID-19 because the government shipped vaccines overseas and they couldn't get one.
If you don't like that and want to criticize the nation state system ok that's fine. Start with some other country like China, or Brazil, or Israel. People won't forget that China already vaccinated 74 million of its own people when people in (insert country) died!
> Are they? Do you have a link? I saw from the New York Times tracker that China has vaccinated 74 million of their own citizens. Are you saying they've sent more vaccines to the rest of the world than the 74 million they've used on their own? If so color me impressed.
12 millon Sinovac doses have been shipped to Chile so far.
"Under the agreement, the countries must return any excess doses to the US."
I see 0 problem with this.
> A further 3 million doses are being kept in storage.
Yep no problem with this either...
> In the end, it‘s India, China, Russia and the EU who give the vast majority of countries any chance of vaccinating their most at-risk citizens. I suspect this won‘t be forgotten.
I think you're severely underestimating how quickly the U.S. is vaccinating and how quickly these shipments will hit the rest of the world. There are ~8 billion people on Earth, and the U.S. and U.K. are leading the way [1] in vaccinating their populations. Once the U.S. is fully vaccinated, tens of millions of doses will flow to the rest of the world on behalf of the U.S. Hell, the U.S. has administered almost more doses than Russia, India, and China combined but those are the countries that will save the world? C'mon.
I personally don't understand the "your country shouldn't put its own citizens first" mentality. It's honestly just incompatible with my own world view as we currently see the world. I mean, we need minimum wage increases here in the U.S. - why isn't the E.U. paying? [2]
This notion is just not very reflective of how the world works, or how humans work for that matter. I guess if the E.U. wants to export all its vaccines so E.U. citizens (why do they even have citizenship? why is it even an organization? Why are there even member states?) get them last - that's their prerogative and I'm sure the E.U. voters will support or reject that. In the U.S. and U.K. I think we take the view that you have to put your mask on first before you help someone put theirs on.
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccina... [2] This notion is easy to dismiss. If you truly believed this you'd feed starving kids in other places instead of your own or any of your friends or relatives. Nobody operates this way so why pretend that nations must?