Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/07/trump-administration-passed-when-pfizer-offered-in-summer-to-sell-more-coronavirus-vaccine-doses-to-u-s-nyt.html
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So the Trump administration will just steal it? They still have a month and a half or so to do it.
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I’m sure it was because they felt awkward buying it when poorer countries would be left out of the bargaining chip. Magnanimous to the bitter end that Trump administration.
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Thanks, Biden! /typical_Republican_rube
This is a good example of the short-term, next-quarter mentality of conservatives. Biff is an extreme example, but his regime’s negligence is an outcome of this greedpig attitude that costs not only human lives but also the economic health they claim is an equal or greater priority.
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Naw, they’re not going to expend effort to fix this - they’re screwing up the vaccine roll-out in a number of ways, some apparently deliberate. They not only don’t care, they appear to want things to be screwed up for Biden, so he’ll get blamed.
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Probably a different outcome if they would have put his name on it.
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Seriously, it seems like at every possible opportunity, Trump and his administration make the wrong call. In every situation that presents itself, they’re just compelled to select the stupidest option. What the fuck.
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Perhaps Trump will use his last few weeks to establish tariffs against Pfizer to punish them for not being all 'Merica first. When are his supporters going to realize he’s not even republican? Oh, right. Nevermind.
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You know why this happened? Because he thought he could bully a vaccine into existence by October and a second round wouldn’t be necessary. Because it would be too late to help him on November 3rd.
He’s exactly that kind of sociopath.
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Maybe they just figured they could eminent-domain that shit whenever they needed.
As long as there’s enough for top GOP officials, Trump cabinet members and the top 10th of 1% why would you need any more?
/S
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Somehow “Never attribute to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity” doesn’t quite fit any more, although I’m sure there are still many, many cases of stupid.
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Trump is holding as vaccine summit later this week, something that could easily have been spun as a victory lap. given the progress on various vaccines over the past two weeks. However, Trump is using the opportunity to sign an ‘America First!’ Executive Order. Two of the major Vaccine players have already announced that they aren’t coming. It’s amazing how this guy can fuck up absolutely everything he touches.
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(with apologies for reposting, but it this does bear repeating)
FFS “large print”? Huh, maybe that’s the target market…
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This is one of those things that is just hard to interpret. My understanding is that the US has already pre-purchased enough vaccine from a variety of companies to cover everyone in the country twice (and that is assuming everyone would take a vaccine). As a physician, I believe the government has handled the crisis exceeding poorly and should have been speaking with one voice to supporting masks as soon as we knew they were effective. However, if I try to be objective, I must recall that back when the US was refusing to participate with international groups to jointly pay for vaccine development because the country was going to take care of itself first while poorer countries fell by the wayside, there was a lot of criticism (appropriate, in my view). But you can’t have it both ways. Criticize for not taking care of the poor or criticize for not buying extra vaccine and making sure you have plenty. I am glad they didn’t buy even more than we need for ourselves (we already bought more than we need). No reason to spend even more money being selfish than we already do.
I think it’s Putin who’s likely making most of those actual decisions. There’s no way he could administer things that badly without a lot of deliberate effort. Ordinary laziness and neglect would result in the bureaucracy (the civil servants who do the actual work) to just do their jobs (like they got into the civil service to do), and likely end up with a decently functioning government. Messing things up the way trump has requires actively blocking those civil servants from doing their jobs, and actively sabotaging the normal functions of the government.
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This administration embodies malice AND stupidity.
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“It’s the TRUMP Vaccine, Mr President!” (struggles to not mention they are renaming Covid-19 to “The TRUMP Virus” to match)
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This is horrible, irresponsible and astoundingly stupid, but it only adds to the case that, given a limited supply of vaccine, other countries definitely deserve it more than we do. They put in the work to actually try to control and limit the spread of the virus, while the United States acted like an entitled, whiny toddler and refused to inconvenience itself in the slightest. It’s because of us* that many, many more doses are going to be needed.
*I am, of course, referring to the country, its government and citizens as a whole, so don’t get mad if you took the virus seriously and made real efforts to avoid spreading it- I did too! But so, SO many of our fellow citizens didn’t and still aren’t.
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The Pfizer vaccine requires very low temperature handling, and so special freezers are required. This makes it more logistically challenging. But it is Canada’s gain. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-announcement-otoole-vaccine-motion-1.5830938
Because we ceased being a vaccine producing nation (we used to), we otherwise have none, so we jumped at this opportunity.
But the amount we are receiving in the first shipment is still less than 10% of our population, I don’t think anyone really knows how the rollout will progress next year. Fingers crossed, wear a mask…
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