Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Berkut]

The last clause is completely unnecessary.

The US is going to take care of US citizens first not because "we know what US citizens are capable of" but because in a democracy, that is the only possible way a functioning society is ever going to react.

And its the same way every other functioning democracy is acting.

Note that the article, when you actually read it, does not at all say that there is a shortage of supplies needed for vaccines because the US is hoarding it all. It is saying that the US is hoarding their own manufacturing output because there is a shortage of those supplies. Again....why in the world would anyone thing they would do any differently, or even suggest that doing differently ought to be expected or make any kind of political, economic, or even moral sense?

If US manufacturers of vaccines are looking to ramp up production in a manner never before seen, and as such say "Hey, we need a LOT more of those specialized vaccine RNA bag thingies that are hyper specialized and only made in a couple places in the world, ad everyone else needs them as well, so there is going to be a projected world wide shortage of them, and we are pretty much going to need all of the ones produced in the US if you want us to be able to produce the quantity needed to vaccinate the US population Mr. Biden...." then of course the US is going to say "Yep, that stuff isn't getting exported anymore!".

If anyone thinks any other democratic country would do any differently, they are fooling themselves. And that has nothing to do with the especial nefariousness of Americans compared to the ROTW.

The EU would seem to be the obvious example proving your statement to be false.

The EU is sending vaccine supplies that they need to other countries? Cite please.

Canada
Australia
Israel
Japan

Those countries are sending supplies they need to produce vaccine to other countries so they can produce vaccines instead of themselves? Cite please.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't think it was inevitable that the US - and other countries - were going to be very protective of their vaccine stocks, especially along the lines of "all of our people before any of yours." I think that's the result of how specific politicians handled the issue and specific actions and policy decisions. I agree that at this point it's politically risky to act otherwise, but I don't think if the crisis had been handled differently - and the rhetoric around had been different - it could have gone otherwise.

I don't see how that could be - I think Tamas is correct that inherent in the very notion of a nation-state is that it will prioritize the lives of its own citizens first. One can critique a world system based on that form of organization but it's hard to argue that the implication doesn't follow.

[Berkut]

Damn, I did not even know Canada was producing vaccines themselves! Very surprised at that, much less that they are doing so with raw materials provided by the EU, which is then constrianing the EU ability to create vaccine themselves.

Still need a cite for this, as the article you are all so enraged about doesn't say that at all.

[Berkut]

I don't think it was inevitable that the US - and other countries - were going to be very protective of their vaccine stocks, especially along the lines of "all of our people before any of yours." I think that's the result of how specific politicians handled the issue and specific actions and policy decisions. I agree that at this point it's politically risky to act otherwise, but I don't think if the crisis had been handled differently - and the rhetoric around had been different - it could have gone otherwise.

That is not what the article that CC has everyone enraged about said though.

[Berkut]

Apparently the US is going to "loan" 1.5 million doses of the AZ vaccine to Canada, and 2.5 million to Mexico.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/reuters-us-canada-mexico-vaccine-1.5954871

This seems to be driven by the fact that the US hasn't approved the vaccine yet, but AZ has been manufacturing it.  These vaccine doses are likely getting close to expiry so they're being sent so that they can actually get used.  Canada and Mexico are supposed to repay the US with vaccine doses later in the year in exchange.

Amazing that you will post an article claiming that the US won't do exactly what your previous post said they were doing, in response to an article claiming something else entirely.

[DGuller]

The last clause is completely unnecessary.

The US is going to take care of US citizens first not because "we know what US citizens are capable of" but because in a democracy, that is the only possible way a functioning society is ever going to react.

And its the same way every other functioning democracy is acting.

I don't think that's always the case, or at least the governments sometimes take actions with a longer-term view of their citizens' interests.  US getting involved in either world war wasn't exactly the US taking care of their citizens first, taking care of their citizens first would not be sending them to the trenches or making the US an economic combatant in WW2 before Pearl Harbor.  We did it because the well-being of our natural allies was in our long-term interests. 

There is also a judgment call in what counts as "taking care of their citizens first".  That may mean statistically saving one US citizen at the cost of not helping to statistically save one foreign citizen, or that may mean saving one US citizen at the cost of not helping to save 1000 foreign citizens.  In either case your own interests are protected by hoarding, but at some point it just gets to be bad geopolitics.

[crazy canuck]

Interesting - because the article in question was not talking about vaccines at all, it was talking about supplies used to produce vaccine, specifically supplies manufactured in the US going to US manufacturers of the vaccine.

Not surprising that CC is ready to just lie about what the article says to promote his bigotry. A little ironic as well, but hardly surprising.

Don't try to mask your mistake with a personal attack.

[crazy canuck]

The last clause is completely unnecessary.

The US is going to take care of US citizens first not because "we know what US citizens are capable of" but because in a democracy, that is the only possible way a functioning society is ever going to react.

And its the same way every other functioning democracy is acting.

Note that the article, when you actually read it, does not at all say that there is a shortage of supplies needed for vaccines because the US is hoarding it all. It is saying that the US is hoarding their own manufacturing output because there is a shortage of those supplies. Again....why in the world would anyone thing they would do any differently, or even suggest that doing differently ought to be expected or make any kind of political, economic, or even moral sense?

If US manufacturers of vaccines are looking to ramp up production in a manner never before seen, and as such say "Hey, we need a LOT more of those specialized vaccine RNA bag thingies that are hyper specialized and only made in a couple places in the world, ad everyone else needs them as well, so there is going to be a projected world wide shortage of them, and we are pretty much going to need all of the ones produced in the US if you want us to be able to produce the quantity needed to vaccinate the US population Mr. Biden...." then of course the US is going to say "Yep, that stuff isn't getting exported anymore!".

If anyone thinks any other democratic country would do any differently, they are fooling themselves. And that has nothing to do with the especial nefariousness of Americans compared to the ROTW.

The EU would seem to be the obvious example proving your statement to be false.

The EU is sending vaccine supplies that they need to other countries? Cite please.

Canada
Australia
Israel
Japan

Those countries are sending supplies they need to produce vaccine to other countries so they can produce vaccines instead of themselves? Cite please.

No, Dont be so fucking obtuse.  They sending the vaccine itself.

[Admiral Yi]

I have not yet seen any hard reporting on the US withholding vaccines from others.  I've read a grand total of one article (in The Economist) and what I took away from that article was three things.

The US ordered a large amount of vaccines from various producers.

The Biden administration has employed some emergency powers to block the export of vaccine precursors.

The EU has blocked the export of AZ vaccine to Australia, vaccine Australia had already contracted for.

Does anyone have an article demonstrating that the US has blocked foreign purchases of US produced vaccine?

[crazy canuck]

For people who might be confused by Berkut's ignorance, including Berkut, the EU is in fact sending vaccine to other countries.

[Berkut]

The last clause is completely unnecessary.

The US is going to take care of US citizens first not because "we know what US citizens are capable of" but because in a democracy, that is the only possible way a functioning society is ever going to react.

And its the same way every other functioning democracy is acting.

I don't think that's always the case, or at least the governments sometimes take actions with a longer-term view of their citizens' interests.  US getting involved in either world war wasn't exactly the US taking care of their citizens first, taking care of their citizens first would not be sending them to the trenches or making the US an economic combatant in WW2 before Pearl Harbor.  We did it because the well-being of our natural allies was in our long-term interests. 

There is also a judgment call in what counts as "taking care of their citizens first".  That may mean statistically saving one US citizen at the cost of not helping to statistically save one foreign citizen, or that may mean saving one US citizen at the cost of not helping to save 1000 foreign citizens.  In either case your own interests are protected by hoarding, but at some point it just gets to be bad geopolitics.

No question from me, but that is not at ALL what the claim is - the claim is that the US is hoarding supplies needed for manufacture. That is the entire point of the article posted - it has NOTHING to do with hoarding vacccine itself.

In WW2 the US looked at maximizing total allied production in the interest of defeating Germany, and revognized that in fact the USSR (as an example) could better apply the value of say, high test aviation fuel in 1943 then the US could, and hence spent massive resources shipping such things to the USSR. Not because they were altruistic, but because in the interest of meeting US national interests, winning the war, the best use of some of our supplies would be to have the USSR produce the weapons on the same continent that the war was being fought.

That is not at all the same here - there is no war going on, and the best way for the US to help the rest of the world is to ramp up our own ability to create vaccine as eficiently and quickly as possible, then ship that vaccine out to the world. That seems pretty obvious to me - if that isn't the case, then someone should make that particular argument to the US government, that in fact India or the EU or Russia could use some part of the US supply of whatever raw material is needed. But that article does not even begin to claim that is the case.

[crazy canuck]

I have not yet seen any hard reporting on the US withholding vaccines from others. 

Holy Fuck, you guys have no idea what is going on.  That is very very scary.

[Berkut]

For people who might be confused by Berkut's ignorance, including Berkut, the EU is in fact sending vaccine to other countries.

For people who might be confused by CC hatred, the EU sending vaccine to other countries has nothing to do with his rage article.

Just read the fucking article. It says nothing about sending vaccine, and doesn't even say what you claim about raw materials.

Why is the US restricting supplies?
President Biden has asked his administration to identify potential shortfalls in materials required for vaccine production.

He has invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA), legislation from the 1950s which gives the US president powers to mobilise the domestic economy in response to emergencies.

The DPA allows the US to restrict the export of products which might be needed for domestic manufacturing.

The Biden administration said it would use the act to increase the list of items that US vaccine makers would get priority access to, such as special pumps and filtration units.

Representatives of various global vaccine makers raised concerns in early March, warning that:

Export restrictions from key suppliers could affect global production
Some items lack standardisation and are highly specialised
Replacement with substitutes sourced from elsewhere could take up to 12 months
Dr Sarah Schiffling, an expert on vaccine supply chains at Liverpool's John Moores University, says the pharmaceutical supply chain is very complex.

"Even when demand is very high, new suppliers can't spring up as quickly as they would in some other industries, or at least those new suppliers would not be trusted."

She also says that the US measures are as much a reaction to existing global shortages, as they are the cause of them.

"To some degree, shortages would be unavoidable for materials needed for any kind of product that is suddenly in demand around the world," she says.

[Berkut]

Interesting - because the article in question was not talking about vaccines at all, it was talking about supplies used to produce vaccine, specifically supplies manufactured in the US going to US manufacturers of the vaccine.

Not surprising that CC is ready to just lie about what the article says to promote his bigotry. A little ironic as well, but hardly surprising.

Don't try to mask your mistake with a personal attack.

The article you cited does not say what you claim. It has nothing to do with sending vaccine anywhere.

[Berkut]

Note as well that the article doesn't even actually say that the US has refused to export raw materials, only that the US has claimed the right to priority access to those materials.

This is hilarious - the level of outrage over something that when you actually look at the actual article and what it actually says, is a giant nothingburger. But lets not let that stop us from getting outraged at those asshole Americans!