What is he trying to win the vaccine Olympics? This is meaningless.
When I came into office, you may recall, I set a goal that many of you said was kind of way over the top. I said I intended to get 100 million shots in people’s arms in my first 100 days in office.
Tonight, I can say we’re not only going to meet that goal, we’re going to beat that goal, because we’re actually on track to reach this goal of 100 million shots in arms on my 60th day in office. No other country in the world has done this. None.
We're not going to make ourselves safe until we make everyone safe. Being better than other countries at meeting some number is irrelevant. Also.... there are reasons that is happening that we really should not be proud of.
The normal rules of business that protect the profits of vaccine manufacturers will have to be set aside if that is what it takes to ensure everybody is immunised against the coronavirus, according to the director general of the World Health Organization.
Writing in the Guardian, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the world needs to be “on a war footing”. Before a key meeting of the World Trade Organization next week on the anniversary of the declaration of the pandemic, he supports a patent waiver that would allow countries to make and sell cheap copies of vaccines that were invented elsewhere.
“We are living through an exceptional moment in history and must rise to the challenge,” he says. “Flexibilities in trade regulations exist for emergencies, and surely a global pandemic which has forced many societies to shut down and caused so much harm to business – both large and small – qualifies. We need to be on a war footing and it’s important to be clear about what is needed.”
Biden mentioned being on a "war footing" during his speech. But by comparing US vaccine performance with the countries hampered by our intellectual property policy, he sounds like he means a war against those countries instead of, you know, the virus.
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