Here is the rate of new COVID-19 cases in India compared to the United States:
India is skyrocketing, but still has quite a ways to go to match the January peak in the United States. However, keep a few things in mind:
- The cases in India are likely undercounted.
- In terms of raw numbers, India is already well above our daily peak (300,000 vs. 250,000 in January for the US).
- The US hospital system is far more advanced than India's.
It's natural that every country is looking toward its own needs first. Like it or not, that's human nature. However, the US has more vaccine doses than it needs at this point, including millions of AstraZeneca doses just sitting in a warehouse, and we could certainly afford to ship most of those to India. We should do that.
(And if you insist on a selfish motivation, it's this: over the next few months India is likely to become the primary source for coronavirus variants. These endanger everyone, and the faster we get the case count under control in India the less of a threat they'll be.)
India also needs syringes, PPE, vaccine precursors, and other things. We—and the rest of the world—should mount a Marshall Plan-esque effort to provide this material.
Beyond that, it's difficult to know what to do. Waiving vaccine patent rights might or might not be a good idea in a broad sense, but it would do nothing to make vaccines more available at the moment. Manufacturing capacity is the main bottleneck right now, along with the willingness of other countries to share vaccine doses if they have a surplus. Unfortunately, manufacturing capacity is already close to 100% and it takes months or years to create more.
This is not a problem with a simple answer. That said, the US is one of the few countries with a potential surplus of both vaccines and medical gear, and we should be establishing an Operation Warp Speed II to get every bit of help to India that we can as fast as we can. What's the counterargument, after all?
Ever watch the British show "Utopia" made in 2013-14??? After you do, you won't want to stop disease or disparage G.Khan again!!!
Biden, Sullivan etc. have put out a bunch of statements to this effect.
Though the scientific consenus is somewhat divided on if letting the pandemic burn in Brazil, Africa and India would actually be likely to generate variants worse than the ones we have. Virus genome is limited.
Regardless I think we should support mexicon and candan (and caribbean) first but support sending vaccines resources etc. to India for the emergency... if Modi stops his super spreader rallies.
Canada and Mexico are musts since they are close commercially. The rest of the world doesn't matter.
"The rest of the world doesn't matter."
Are you aware that almost the entire epidemic in America was imported from Europe? (There was a little importation from China on the west coast back in the early months of 2020, but that strain was contained before it spread very far.)
He is an ignoramus and innumerate, a few Kevin OPs ago he was inventing Just So stories about the supposed lapsed Jewish father of Gaetz (whose family by public record is Lutheran going back generations, so clearly pure Just So invention)
His family on his mother's side. Try harder
Once the US has access to Canadian resources, Europe will not be needed. Travel should be sharply lower.
Canadian resources of what? Mediterranean beaches?
Imported from China via Europe. Initial epicenter in New York city has a huge population of recently immigrated Chinese.
True. But they looked at the genome and the prevalent strain in the early wave in NY was from Italy (it mutated on the way from China to there)
Mexico and Canada should be highest priority (NAU mofos!) but certainly other regions could also benefit from our help.
The larger the number of potential variations the greater the potential chances that a potentially vaccine evading as well as contagious variety emerges.
With a large number of iterations available in a large population, the chances of a bad result are increased.
Would those be the same doses Biden promised to Canada and Mexico? ...
If I recall correctly, Canada and Mexico were only getting a fraction of our supply. I think there are still 20 million doses left. (ok, maybe more):
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/550137-krishnamoorthi-calls-on-biden-to-release-us-astrazeneca-vaccine-stores-to
Thank you, Kevin Drum, for being the anti-midgard.
There is no truth greater than that no man or woman is an island.
National boundaries do not protect us for long in an age of international travel, as was shown when travelers were allowed back to NY & LA , herded in close contact through airports, potentially spreading COVID-19.
Ship to India Everything Possible....
...there will be soon, or now, an excess if vaccines...and oxygen and ventilators, air lift all of this today, Sunday, 4. 25. 21.
Europe is making a splash as to their effort...the US should also have a publicity blitz, an effort that will do much to restore some US moral authority on the international stage.
But we must be public and showy in these regards.
Traveller (who doesn't mind being associated with a horse, (clever that!), but politely declines to carry on my back any of the RE Lee reputational baggage)
We have another selfish motive to help India. A ton of pharmaceutical products are made in India. They have a huge capacity to manufacture vaccines including COVID-19 but only if we can help them stabilize things.
This is a very important point. On German television news today they said India proudly calls itself the apothecary of the world, since so many pharmaceuticals are made there, but right now it's running out of ingredients, oxygen, things like that.
From the South China Morning Post:
"India is also running low on vaccines and has asked the US to lift an export ban on the raw materials needed to make them, but Washington declined saying it had a responsibility to look after the American people first.
“It is, of course, not only in our interest to see Americans vaccinated, it’s in the interests of the rest of the world to see Americans vaccinated,” said the US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Thursday."
Raw Story:
"In a story published Friday, journalist Lee Fang cites “newly filed disclosure forms from the first quarter of 2021” to reveal that “over 100 lobbyists have been mobilized to contact lawmakers and members of the Biden administration, urging them to oppose a proposed temporary waiver” of patent protections at the WTO—a push led by India and South Africa and backed by the World Health Organization, over a hundred nations, and public health experts and justice advocates worldwide."
Any relation to Fang Fang?
The problem is even if we could send over 100 million doses, would that really help a country of 1,366,000,000 people? Not sure how corrupt India is but it might just go to the elite who aren't the ones getting sick and dying right now.
Great idea, but in practical terms, unfortunately not so much.
Some of their factories are shut down due to covid outbreaks. If the vaccines help protect those making the vaccines and front line workers, they will make a difference.
Make the release of vaccine conditional on Modi stepping down. Or at least acknowledging the perversity & inhumanity of his curry fried Trumpism.
heh curry fried Trumpism
That's the cruel truth but we should not condition aid on regime change it will backfire bigtime. A charm offensive in support of a secular India will be more effective.
That's why I said resign OR disown his dysfunctional popular elitism.
Two observations
1. Indians (dot not feather) are supposedly so intelligent that we 'need' to import hundreds of thousands of them keep our tech industry going. So why can't they solve this themselves?
2. Or maybe, if their education system and economy hadn't been distorted into emphasizing cranking out 'tech' "degrees" and thus H1-B-ing and off-shoring the US technical workplace, they'd have better public sanitation, hygiene, and biotech skilz.
3. This is kind of a concession that President Trump's Operation Warp Speed worked, no?
Three, make that three observations.
1. India can solve this themselves. Given some help, they can solve it faster, to the benefit of the whole world.
2. India remains a poor country. They've managed to produce an educated class, and they show fairly rapid economic growth so that India is becoming a less poor country. However, like China they are trying to lift an enormous population out of grinding poverty, and this takes time.
3. Operation Warp Speed is, indeed, one of the few things Trump got right.
" India remains a poor country. They've managed to produce an educated class, and they show fairly rapid economic growth so that India is becoming a less poor country. "
My point exactly. They've distorted their 'education' to focus on tech to the detriment to everything else. And wouldn't they, and the entire world, be better off if all those smart H1-Bs were back in India working on sanitation etc, rather than serving as techwalas for the latest version of Candy Crush?
> Trump got right.
Precisely the opposite. If you're going to brand something as Warp Speed it ought to be quick. The issue has always been that the entire world needs to be vaccinated. Even though Operation Warp Speed was supposed to be ramping up production in parallel with trials. And yet, here we are, still struggling to ramp up production.
In a global pandemic, provincial thinking is the default position.
This pervasive Me-First philosophy means that many (most) leaders and their followers around the world can only see the scope of the global problem within their borders.
People who think beyond borders get attacked for not putting their own kind first, right up until the perverse images of tragedy start hitting the screens.
Suddenly, people are like, "Hey, we should do *something*?"
India could no doubt use some assistance. However, quite a few other countries could also use some assistance. What is needed is to get the whole world vaccinated, and I don't know enough about how things are going in the rest of the world to say how much priority India should get.
Yes.
Vaccines needed to protect their vaccine production as well as their first responders. India is the linchpin to the COVAX project, so has to be protected.
Some entrepreneurs set up US production of PPE--and can't get contracts. Ramp those up to help India.
Right now, vaccinations are slowing in the US, and it's not supply limited in many areas. Once we have a few million of our vaccines stockpiled, then split that production between domestic and export markets.
India needs to be stabilized for COVAX to work, Then we have to help the rest of the world. Relax export restrictions to help Europe. Then supply vaccines directly to other places.
By "our vaccines" I mean Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and J&J-Janssen. The AstraZeneca doses stockpiled here should be released. And if there are Novavax ones here--release those too---oops, approval pending, so not being used yet.
Some help is being sent--but a lot more will be needed:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/25/politics/india-covid-response-defense-department-support/index.html
and
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/25/politics/covid-supplies-to-india-from-united-states/index.html
When Michigan was having a surge in April, governor Whitmer asked the Biden administration for more vaccine allocations and was told... No. So India is more important than Michigan?
"Amid Michigan’s worst-in-the-nation coronavirus surge, scientists and public health officials are urging the Biden administration to flood the state with additional vaccine doses. So far, though, their plea has fallen on deaf ears. Instead, the federal government is sticking to a vaccine-allocation strategy that largely awards doses to states and territories based on their population. As a result, most jurisdictions are still receiving similar per-capita vaccine supplies, regardless of how many people there are getting sick — or how many excess vaccine doses they have."
In a short time, the US will have no more demand for vaccine. The hardcore deniers will never get it so we will be done. At the moment, though, it is apparently it is still often impossible to schedule an appointment. The same is still true in some parts of Michigan... demand exceeds supply. So I don't really have any interest in helping India just yet.
The US government has imposed economic sanctions on many countries. Russia, Iran, Syria, and lots more places to be sure. India is, in my view, a similar enemy now run by religious extremists. I'm not sure they are more worthy of aid than, say, Iran.
Should read: At the moment, though, it is apparently still often impossible to schedule an appointment in Chicago.
My brother was able to get his first shot at a Walgreen's walking distance from his apartment in Chicago 2 weeks ago. And Indiana has a ton of excess doses they've invited folks out of state to come on in and get a shot. Not sure of the availability in Gary right across the state line.
I think the spot shortages of doses like we had here in the DC area are rapidly improving, we'll get all who wanted a shot a shot by the end of May.
Rogers Park, Chicago; the partner and I just got our second shots on Thursday and Friday. We got our initial appointments within a day after category 1C (education, etc.) became eligible.
About Michigan:
1. Governor Whitmer asked for vaccines because she didn't have the cojones to shut down the state again. The request is as much an excuse for a politician as a reasonable proposal.
2. Has anybody thought about the logistics of a massive surge into an entity as large as Michigan? This is not a few thousand shots like they use in Africa to contain Ebola outbreaks. It would be hundreds of thousands.
3. The way it looks in Michigan they won't even have enough people who accept the vaccine to make much of a difference.
4. From the time of vaccination it takes anywhere from 2 weeks (J & J) to five weeks (Pfizer and Moderna) for the vaccine to work its magic. Not to mention the time before vaccinations while the logistics is sorted out. Shutting down the state begins working on day one. Which one should Whitmer choose?
Five weeks from the first shot you mean. It's two weeks to become fully effective after the last shot.
"It's natural that every country is looking toward its own needs first. Like it or not, that's human nature."
It's more than human nature; it's the obligation of each country's government. No, not to the complete exclusion of other countries, but as the primary focus.
How strange. You're saying Operation Warp Speed was never designed to solve the pandemic at Warp Speed?
The Moral Hazard is strong with this one. If you were a good little poor country going into lock down to protect yourself until a vaccine was widely available, no vaccine for you. If you went out and partied during your religious holidays when the science clearly said that would spread the virus, then we'll rush you as much vaccine as we can lay our hands on right away.