What is the aim of any business?

a) Maximize production?

b) Maximize profits?

Which strategy for making vaccine doses will help end a global pandemic faster?

a) Maximize production?

b) Maximize profits?

Why are rich governments throttling production?

Only 3.2% of the global population has been fully vaccinated.

At this rate, it will take YEARS to vaccinate 70% of us - the number estimated we need for herd immunity.

And vaccine rollout has been hugely uneven.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Years means...

Years of more suffering & death...

Years of more economic disruption...

Years of more chances for new variants of the virus to emerge that are more deadly, more virulent, and/or resistant to the current vaccines...
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/two-thirds-epidemiologists-warn-mutations-could-render-current-covid-vaccines

The problem - as everyone knows - is shortages of vaccine doses.

Companies aren't making enough for everyone fast enough.

Rich governments hoard them, fighting with each other & buying more than they need.

Low-income countries beg for scraps & get little or nothing

The current global vaccine rollout is too slow and too uneven.

Governments should do everything they can to fix that.

This includes accepting the #TRIPSwaiver proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The proposal would allow WTO members to temporarily waive application of some rules that are part of a global intellectual property treaty - the "TRIPS Agreement" - until widespread vaccination is in place globally.

In short, it would boost wider production of vaccines globally

Some say that this would not instantly result in greater production. Of course, it would take months.

But they've been saying it for months...

We could be much further ahead today if we'd acted earlier.

We could be ahead tomorrow if we act today. https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/1382301491789246464

When the #TRIPSwaiver proposal was introduced (by India & South Africa) in October 2020, there were over 1 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide.

Now, six months later, the death toll is over 3 million.

How many more months of death should we all wait?

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/at-delhi-crematoriums-corpses-wait-in-20-hour-queues-to-burn-101619522536735.html

What's happening now - rich governments encouraging shortages & then fighting over scarce doses - is not working.

We need a glut of vaccines, not a shortage.

It's highly unlikely that any for-profit business would ever see creating a glut of anything as being in its interest.

That's simply not the rationale of any business whose aim is to maximize profits.

But, right now, we need to maximize production globally for all of us, not maximize profits for a few.

We need to think globally.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/04/reinforcing-rights-can-help-avert-failure-covid-19-vaccines