Monday, April 26, 2021

How can we complain when we got what we asked for?

"Anti-US and anti-western sentiment is exploding across social media with growing criticism directed at the Biden-Harris administration for sitting on stockpiles of unused vaccines, jealously guarding patents, and turning a deaf ear to the dire situation in Covid-wracked countries such as India and Brazil," wrote Chidanand Rajghatta. "According to a report by the Duke Global health Innovation Center, the US is on track to have an oversupply of up to 300 million or more vaccine doses as soon as July -- counting the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines that Washington has sidelined -- even as many nations in the developing world have to wait years to vaccinate a majority of their populations." "The US government went into damage control after facing widespread criticism" and "Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that the US will rapidly deploy additional support to India and its healthcare heroes to help combat the severe second wave of Covid", Times of India (TOI). A survey before US elections in November 2020 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace showed that "Only 22% of Indian Americans registered to vote are expected to support President Donald Trump compared with 72% for Biden", The Print. Vaccination centers in the US are shutting down as many Americans are reluctant to take their shots, Forbes. The AstraZeneca vaccine is being manufactured as Covishield by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and has been used extensively here, but it has not been approved for use in the US because of 100 reported cases of blood clots with 37 fatalities, Fierce Pharma. The US has ordered 60 million doses of the vaccine which it seems to have no intention of using and is now going to export it to countries where the vaccine has been approved, including to India, BBC. Not just the vaccine, the Biden administration has imposed a ban on export of raw materials required to manufacture the vaccine, prompting CEO of SII Adar Poonawalla to appeal to Biden to lift the US embargo. "Unless governments act soon, capitalism itself could face a crisis of credibility," wrote Mihir Sharma. "When it comes to desperately needed Covid-19 vaccines, capacity is being wasted and innovation isn't benefiting everyone. Twelve billion vaccine doses could be produced this year," "But we're nowhere close to that in actuality. And the doses that are available have largely been gobbled up by rich countries." Other countries cannot easily manufacture vaccines because "something as complex as a Covid-19 vaccine cannot be easily reverse-engineered". Big Pharma is trying to license their products to as many countries as possible but they are hampered by the need to ensure quality control which takes up 70% of time of making vaccines. India is suffering now because, "The country's medical facilities are so inadequate that overall hospitalization rates for the sick are among the lowest in the world: 3% to 4%, compared to an average 8% to 9% in middle-income countries and even higher elsewhere," wrote Anjani Trivedi. Brazil's "population is the same as that of Uttar Pradesh, and it spends over 16 times the amount India does on a per capita basis on healthcare. Yet its medical system is overwhelmed." "If India falters, its failure will be many times the disaster in Brazil." It already is. Indians in India celebrated Biden's election victory because they expect more Indians to be able escape to the US on the H1B visa, DNA India. Indians in the US hope Biden will grant them the heaven of 'green card' security, TOI. You get what you ask for. Why complain?       

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