US throws out millions of doses of Covid vaccine as world goes wanting

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/16/us-throws-out-millions-doses-covid-vaccine-world-shortages

by lxm • 5 years ago

58 111 5 years ago

I mean I won't call clickbait but title is intentionally pushing some outrage crap.

In the face of global inequities, it’s not as simple as states donating unused vaccines. The doses already distributed to states can’t be repurposed internationally because of bureaucratic and safety concerns around storing the vaccines correctly.

This is alongside a global crisis for shipping anything using cargo ships

silisili• 5 years ago

It's absolutely clickbait. The title strongly gives the impression of the US just throwing vaccines in the trash and laughing while others are suffering.

The article is much more levelheaded and explains why fairly well, so it's by definition clickbait IMO.

systemvoltage• 5 years ago

Probably risky to say it here but I think liberal media has two contradictory forces to deal with 1) Can't say anything pro-US due to association with right-wing media 2) Can't remain 100% factual as clickrate metrics dwindle.

Not saying they're not factual (mostly they are), just that they have editorial bias that serves the readership while also having to state facts (some of them are pro-US).

Edit: @simonh - Agreed, Right wing media is completely off the rails, but not sure we need to compare here. I wasn't advocating it.

spicybright2• 5 years ago

It reminds me of people yelling about food waste in grocery stores and restaurants.

Yes, absolutely it's bad they're throwing it out. No debate there. But it's not like they can ship it somewhere else without it costing more than the food itself.

The solution is better understanding of who needs what and try to fill them as close as you can without going over too much. That will optimize usage of a product.

sudosysgen16• 5 years ago

I assure you there is no shortage of countries that will pay for the vaccines to be delivered by air to their airport and then take it from there.

Other countries have done it. The US won't. It's clearly not anywhere close.

Kungfuturtle• 5 years ago

I encourage you to consider an alternative perspective, in which grocery stores intentionally restrict availability of food in order to artificially maintain high profits and externalize the costs of reprocessing for redistribution: https://twitter.com/a_vansi/status/1445450534672998407

What if, for example, food that would spoil in a couple more days were simply moved to a "free" section of the grocery store? No need for complex shipping or logistics costs, simply ask the stocker to move from one aisle to another. Why don't grocery stores do that, if they're concerned about "reducing waste"?

iszomer3• 5 years ago

There has also been a relatively small culture of dumpster diving (for food) because of it.

sudosysgen16• 5 years ago

Oh come on.

First of all, vaccines aren't delivered internationally by ship, they are delivered by air cargo. Often by militaries, which will do it promptly at a moment's notice.

Second of all, "bureaucratic and safety concerns" is code for "we don't want to bother". Those are all things that can be worked around and have indeed been by other countries that had excess doses.

Jtsummers3• 5 years ago

Using Louisiana from the article, 90% of the waste was from started vials that weren't finished before they expired from being initially punctured (starts a countdown for safety/effectiveness reasons). We could overnight those to airports in other countries and then, somehow, quickly transport them (while refrigerated) to remote areas. Yeah, that would totally show up with enough time to still be useful.

Or, hear me out, we could make sure other countries get doses straight from production sources instead of getting the just-about-to-expire doses left over from the US.

cperciva• 5 years ago

Vaccines are small enough and valuable enough to be transported in planes -- by the military if necessary.

iszomer3• 5 years ago

IIRC they all have varying requirements for storage during transport; some require extreme temperature control while others do not.

tgsovlerkhgsel• 5 years ago

Louisiana has thrown out 224,000 unused doses of the Covid vaccines – a rate that has almost tripled since the end of July, even as a deadly fourth wave of the virus gripped the state. Some of the lost doses came from opening and not finishing vials, but more than 20,000 shots simply expired.

So about 10% of the loss was due to expiration, and that could have happened pretty far downstream, not in some massive central warehouse where someone could have sent a pallet of 20000 shots out.

credit_guy• 5 years ago

6.64 Billion doses have been administered worldwide so far.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_W...

simonh2• 5 years ago

And on the same page, apparently only 2.7% of people in low income countries have been vaccinated.

BiteCode_dev2• 5 years ago

That's weird. Most people live in low income countries, if 6 billions doses have been administrated, that's about half the world with 2 doses.

The 2 metrics doesn't seem to go together.

pacetherace• 5 years ago

Depends on where you count India

xwdv2• 5 years ago

Wanting? The way some people act it seems like those left unvaccinated couldn’t care less about getting a vaccine.

Cerium• 5 years ago

The people left wanting are those in countries without sufficient supply.

xwdv2• 5 years ago

A country can have insufficient supply and a large number of people who do not want it.

lr4444lr• 5 years ago

A sad pattern too often repeated with a lot of other vital goods.

burlesona• 5 years ago

For context, as of August the US has donated over 100 million doses to other countries - which is more than any other nation - and per the NYT is in negotiation to supply another 500M doses for the world.

But hey the Guardian needs clickbait.

1. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/03/1023822...

pupppet3• 5 years ago

Don't forgot they 'donated' much of this because the U.S. used its position to secure far more than they needed to hedge their bets. Basically offloading vaccine other countries could have purchased themselves.

unanswered• 5 years ago

So in other words... The US paid for a bunch of other countries' vaccines? Explain again how this is a bad thing for those countries?

_3u10• 5 years ago

Yeah as a vaccinated non-US citizen I’m super upset the Trump govt funded vaccine development. What an awful country.

Thankfully 50% of your country graciously declined vaccines so the rest of us could get vaccinated. Those citizens are the real heroes of the pandemic don’t you agree?

maxerickson6• 5 years ago

That's still kind of a pathetic amount when you consider how wealthy the US is and how many vaccines are needed globally.

The reluctance to invest in production capacity demonstrated by both the Trump administration and the Biden administration is disappointing. People like to reply to points like this by highlighting the unambitious investments that did get made. I don't pretend to know what the actual limits of production are, but I'm pretty skeptical that we got near them.

Edit: A year after it was reasonably clear we had viable vaccines, we are something like 10 billion doses short of global coverage. That's what I am comparing 100 million to.

TrispusAttucks6• 5 years ago

Just to be clear.

Government wealth comes from tax collection and from the people. While we want to help the world there are constraints on how much we can do.

throwaway89434512• 5 years ago

The Trump and Biden administrations both invested heavily in vaccine production. And while the US is wealthy, it’s not wealthier than all of the other countries combined, and yet it is donating more vaccine than all other countries combined.

wbl2• 5 years ago

Did those containers actually get on planes and go, or was it just a pledge?

sudosysgen16• 5 years ago

The only reason these doses were donated is because they couldn't be used.

When the doses could be used, the US jealously guarded them, while the EU, Russia, China and even Cuba shared.

The 100 million doses that were "donated" almost two years later is a very poor excuse for hogging the supply when it mattered most.

As for the optics or donating - it was done only so that the US could say "we donated the most" while many, many countries actually supplied a lot more. Paying 3-4$ per dose is not an issue for almost any country, and when it actually is the EU, Russia, China et al. had no issues discounting or even donating them.

andrewbarba• 5 years ago

Are we now saying donating unused things is inferior to donating things that could be used? I think this is a horrible take. Also two years since when? US had regular supply of vaccine only since March.

bitshiftfaced• 5 years ago

Were those doses exclusory? If not, then there's no problem because producing them had no good or bad effect on other countries. If it was exclusory, then shouldn't it be a country's first priority to ensure its own citizens' safety first?

If your house is burning down, do you let your neighbor use your water hose before you can put out your own fire?

dukeofdoom• 5 years ago

There's very little logical reason to take the vaccine if you are young, fit and healthy. Sadly many Americans are not, at alarming rates, so should take the vaccine. However, strong immune system can deal with the virus. Parts of the Asian world seem to be almost immune to it naturally.

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts" - Richard Feynman.

natchy2• 5 years ago

Biden has vowed to vaccinate 70% of the world in the next year

Imagine the profits Pfizer is going to have. Hell of a quarter.

NikolaeVarius2• 5 years ago

I'm sure that developing and certifying a drug administered to a large percentage of the population is entirely simple and risk free.

bad_username• 5 years ago

They are not liable for vaccine injuries, so I would call their risk minimal.

rebuilder• 5 years ago

If making a vaccine against an historic pandemic doesn’t entitle you to get some profit, what does?

natchy2• 5 years ago

Getting the president of a country to push other countries to take the vaccine is next level go-to-market strategy.

some profit.

Ha! We’re talking 10s of billions.

Personally, I’m waiting for the Monsanto vaccine before I take it.

Animats• 5 years ago

Much of that is just a packaging issue. With 5 or 6 doses to a vial, there's going to be some loss just because the number of people vaccinated doesn't come out even with the vial capacity. Louisiana is listed as losing 224,000 out of 4.4 million doses. That's 5%, which is not too bad, for the whole distribution and vaccination process.

lamontcg• 5 years ago

Joe Biden has vowed to vaccinate 70% of the world in the next year, and has committed to donate several million doses for use abroad.

China is up to 1.3 billion vaccine exports while the US is lagging at 176 million. If anyone is vaccinating 70% of the world next year, it is going to be China.

US throws out millions of doses of Covid vaccine as world goes wanting

Related Stories