Vaccine race

[Danioover9000]

  The USA is currently leading in vaccine production, while China is second. It seems that the EU, despite dealing with the Covid pandemic slightly sooner than the UK, is slightly slow in producing viable vaccines before the UK:

   What are your thoughts on why the EU was lagging behind the UK's own production?

[commie]

I'm guessing a lot of the information is proprietary and that we'll never know but by the looks of it...

-the race was about developing the vaccines and the people framing distribution as a race are scum

-it's not the EU which lacks vaccines but poorer countries

-much like Israel's, the UK's domestic consumption of vaccines will have little impact one way or the other (in other words: the real issue is that the USA is hardly sharing its doses)

-the EU's investment spending has generally been shockingly inadequate because certain member states are reluctant to allow its budget to be anywhere as large as it should be, and as a result the EU hardly knows how to invest

-the EU is in the business of handing out sweetheart deals as well as protectionist perks to well-connected corporations

-most of European production isn't in the EU proper (you may have seen the clause in the infamous contract regarding the UK but there's a lot of production being ramped up in other non-EU European countries as well), with obvious potential for trouble should any of the relevant governments behave in a short-sighted manner

Edited February 1, 2021 by commie

[Dryas]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/150-million-vaccinations-tracker-biden-goal-n1255716

[Vrubel]

I was always supportive of the union but I am royally disappointed with the bureaucratic debacle in securing the vaccines. It feels to me like the EU is demonstrating that it doesn't take the survival and wellbeing of its people seriously enough. My mother has a compromised immune system so I want her vaccinated ASAP. But apparently, this won't happen before every bureaucrat in Strassbourg and Brussels gets his stack of the paperwork finished. 

Both of my grandparents who live in Israel already had their two injections because they live in a country that takes survival very seriously. The EU is too big and rigid to deal with such urgent survival issues effectively.

[commie]

26 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

But apparently, this won't happen before every bureaucrat in Strassbourg and Brussels gets his stack of the paperwork finished.

Where did you get the idea that this has anything to do with paperwork? Many EU countries with no indigenous pharma industry to speak of have vaccinated more of their residents than Canada for instance. The Netherlands and to a lesser extent France are behind the rest of the EU but what's that got to do with Brussels or Strasbourg?

Do you figure the USA is "too big" as well?

Maybe you'd like the your member state not to share with the others? That would at least make sense.

Edited February 1, 2021 by commie

[Vrubel]

@commie To begin with my country is The Netherlands, so you know that's my POV. The ministers here responsible for vaccine distribution have actually admitted they blundered and that they could have been much swifter in securing the vaccins and with starting the vaccination program. We usually pride ourselves on being efficient and very competent but unfortunately not this time.

The European way of organizing is in usual times quite effective but not so much in these crisis times. Mainly because we stubbornly hang on to the old ways, which make us way less flexible in crisis times when certain rules and bureaucracy need to be relaxed in order to act more effectively. In times of crises, you need assertiveness and audacity, this is sorely missing here. In the culture of my country, formal bureaucratic rules and proceeders are considered holy. This is also true for the EU, which is a highly formalized bureaucratic institution.

In England, they are less formally proper in this regard. In their culture, they have this "can-do mentality" which makes them more audacious. That's why their vaccination program is having more success.  

I even heard that Hungary has chosen not to wait on the EU but also to order the Russian and Chinese vaccines. Whether that is wise or not, I don't know (probably not, I am afraid). But I can tell by their mentality and how they act that they are audacious and assertively proactive. This is the kind of mentality you need in a crisis. 

1 hour ago, commie said:

Do you figure the USA is "too big" as well?

It depends on what America's approach will be, but yeah being big usually means you are more formalized and less flexible. And obviously having a large population is a huge disadvantage if you want to vaccinate your whole population. A country like Andorra can vaccinate its population in only a few days so to speak. 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Vrubel

[Danioover9000]

@commie

On 2/1/2021 at 7:18 PM, commie said:

I'm guessing a lot of the information is proprietary and that we'll never know but by the looks of it...

-the race was about developing the vaccines and the people framing distribution as a race are scum

-it's not the EU which lacks vaccines but poorer countries

-much like Israel's, the UK's domestic consumption of vaccines will have little impact one way or the other (in other words: the real issue is that the USA is hardly sharing its doses)

-the EU's investment spending has generally been shockingly inadequate because certain member states are reluctant to allow its budget to be anywhere as large as it should be, and as a result the EU hardly knows how to invest

-the EU is in the business of handing out sweetheart deals as well as protectionist perks to well-connected corporations

-most of European production isn't in the EU proper (you may have seen the clause in the infamous contract regarding the UK but there's a lot of production being ramped up in other non-EU European countries as well), with obvious potential for trouble should any of the relevant governments behave in a short-sighted manner

1. I do agree that framing distribution as a race is scummy behavior, but when viewed from stage orange, in terms of vaccine rate production, profit returns and out pacing other pharmaceutical business in different countries, from a materialists/realists/scientist/business CEO's perspective, it makes sense to compare this to a race, to whoever is first to produce, is first to profit. This also makes sense to a person who's stage blue/orange, especially when their country looks good because they're the first before other cultures in providing vaccine and relief.

2. This does makes sense, from a stage blue perspective, as their own family/country comes first before anyone else's. Also, the UK is mainly an island, so the population, compared to the USA, will have a smaller domestic consumption.

3. This point, I won't fully dunk on the EU's management of it's economy, as the pandemic really had blindsided the world. Even though the EU is a federation modelled government, many aspects of it are from different European cultures, with slightly different infrastructures that were not prepared for how severe the pandemic is. In the early days, most just write it off as a bad case of flu.

4. If I'm not mistaken, the USA's style of government was the inspiration for the formation of the EU, not just to unite against China/Russia's communist expansion.

 

[commie]

1 hour ago, Danioover9000 said:

1. I do agree that framing distribution as a race is scummy behavior, but when viewed from stage orange, in terms of vaccine rate production, profit returns and out pacing other pharmaceutical business in different countries, from a materialists/realists/scientist/business CEO's perspective, it makes sense to compare this to a race, to whoever is first to produce, is first to profit. This also makes sense to a person who's stage blue/orange, especially when their country looks good because they're the first before other cultures in providing vaccine and relief.

If so, why weren't the vaccines developped much quicker? Mass production could simply have been started much earlier even if people didn't want to address the ethics of speeding up the final phases of testing. Russia and China got vaccines out of the door faster, using (much) less resources, expertise and talent. Or is this a matter of: we sure want to win this race, but without working on the roadblocks, planning ahead or paying our way?

Occam's razor: this is all about optics, not substance.

1 hour ago, Danioover9000 said:

4. If I'm not mistaken, the USA's style of government was the inspiration for the formation of the EU, not just to unite against China/Russia's communist expansion.

I was taught something else entierly. I didn't bother to investigate the facts of the matter for myself because I hardly care. The way I see it, things like the EU are largely a product of mostly-forgotten circumstances because they grow through bottom-up pragmatic deal-making, not because it was ordained by some idealistic (or strategically-minded) great leader(s).

[Danioover9000]

@commie

14 hours ago, commie said:

If so, why weren't the vaccines developped much quicker? Mass production could simply have been started much earlier even if people didn't want to address the ethics of speeding up the final phases of testing. Russia and China got vaccines out of the door faster, using (much) less resources, expertise and talent. Or is this a matter of: we sure want to win this race, but without working on the roadblocks, planning ahead or paying our way?

Occam's razor: this is all about optics, not substance.

I was taught something else entierly. I didn't bother to investigate the facts of the matter for myself because I hardly care. The way I see it, things like the EU are largely a product of mostly-forgotten circumstances because they grow through bottom-up pragmatic deal-making, not because it was ordained by some idealistic (or strategically-minded) great leader(s).

  I have little interest in convincing you of my side, nor do I give a shit what stage blue and orange thinks about vaccine production. I'm stating that to stage orange and blue views, this vaccine race makes sense to them. Take up your grievances to them, the people that mishandled the outbreak, and the region this virus started, not at me.