WHO slams rich countries for hogging COVID-19 vaccines

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The World Health Organization on Monday blasted wealthy countries for hogging COVID-19 vaccines and doing so, hindering the pathway for poorer nations to get them too.

WHO director-general said some rich countries' direct deals with manufacturers had meant that previously-agreed vaccine allocations for poorer countries, via the Covax program, were being reduced.

He urged wealthy nations to start checking first as to whether their own deals with pharmaceutical companies were undermining Covax, which poorer countries are relying on as they await their first doses.

"Some high-income countries are actually approaching manufacturers to secure more vaccines, which is affecting the deals with Covax -and even the amount that was allocated for Covax was reduced because of this," he said.

"We can only have vaccines delivered to the countries who are members of Covax if the high-income countries cooperate in respecting the deals that Covax did."

The first wave of Covax vaccines are to be shipped out between late February and the end of June.

source

[StarstruckIllusion 28,577]

She’s talking to you @JustinTrudeau 😛

[PartySick 64,184]

Backdoor deals are scummy, ngl. But I'm not shocked at all that every nation is being selfish about this. They all want to reopen and start repairing their economies.

I think the best we can hope for is a sweeping humanitarian effort after all the developed nations have fully vaccinated. And even then, it'll be altruism through selfish needs ("don't bring that covid sh*t back into our country").

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4 minutes ago, StarstruckIllusion said:

She’s talking to you @JustinTrudeau 😛

Canada is waiting for vaccines from Covax

 

Edited February 22 by 777777777777777777

[Gabe 1,688]

If we're going to be honest, no country is going to give their vaccines to nations in need before their own people. One, thats horrible politics they would never win re-election. Two, they want their own economies to reopen are restart.

 

They will order way more than they need until all their population is vaccinated then "give them away" once they have enough. Not to be pessimistic, but it was always going to be this way. 

[bionic 19,915]

It’s a shame for poorer nations but it would be terrible move politically for a country to dedicate some of its (already limited) portion of vaccines to foreign countries while native citizens are dying 

[homomo 19,593]

The saddest part of this is that while poor nations suffer without enough vaccines for a longer period than 1st world nations, it gives the chance for extreme variants of the virus to develop and infiltrate back into vaccinated countries - thus making the whole program, hoarding, etc, completely and utterly useless.

Imagine if vaccine companies didn’t make a profit on this, and let the whole world create their formula. Each country could hire a professional team of people to develop the vaccine locally, and get this pandemic over with worldwide in less than a few months

But nope. Man-made laws and money matters more. 

[Florian 18,797]

22 minutes ago, Gabe said:

If we're going to be honest, no country is going to give their vaccines to nations in need before their own people. One, thats horrible politics they would never win re-election. Two, they want their own economies to reopen are restart.

 

They will order way more than they need until all their population is vaccinated then "give them away" once they have enough. Not to be pessimistic, but it was always going to be this way. 

France has decided to give or sell for a very low price up to 5% of our stock to African countries since it wouldn't change anything due to the maximal capacity and speed to deliver vaccine to French people per day.

5% is not much but if every rich countries were doing it it would be a nice effort to help those in need

[PunkTheFunk 110,823]

Canada:

 

[Chuckles 2,374]

I think the WHO needs to call the WTO on this one...

[FentyGa 13,534]

i mean can you blame them for it lol