Aptly named Sputnik V, Russian “approved” vaccine is like old Soviet rocket tech that only got cosmonauts into orbit but lacked the sophistication to get them to the moon like US could. https://sputnikvaccine.com/newsroom/forbidden-op-ed-the-sputnik-vaccine-as-a-lifesaving-global-partnership-eng/

It’s a two vector adenovirus vaccine, like taking a shot of Cansino’s vaccine (Ad5) followed by a shot of JNJ’s (Ad26). Not much data b/c only did Phase 1. Cansino’s data were really weak. AstraZeneca & Oxford also have a weak adenoviral vaccine, even after 2 shots.

Russia says their breakthrough is using different adenoviruses for the shots. Maybe, but they don’t show much data and the 100% protection they refer to is not based on the large protection studies needed to make such a claim.

But the key phrase from their announcement is this one: “Mass production of the vaccine is expected to start by September”. So the real work hasn’t started. That’s what I mean by they can’t get to the moon. They didn’t scale production in parallel with testing, like others have.

So what Russia just did is like calling a Phase 3 vaccine trial a “commercial launch”. Semantics, but not a credible solution to pandemic. Other companies will reach more meaningful scale sooner w/ credible protection data. To this day, Russia hasn’t put a person on the moon.

That’s not to say they can’t. Russia has sophisticated engineers and historically exported some of the smartest scientists. I’m just saying they haven’t yet... neither gotten people to the moon nor actually launched a proven vaccine that will end their or anyone’s pandemic soon.