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Instead of competing bids, US & Germany should be pooling funds for a cure, and carrying out the research wherever the firm feels is most time/$ efficient. If

Instead of competing bids, US & Germany should be pooling funds for a cure, and carrying out the research wherever the firm feels is most time/$ efficient. If anything, the agreement should be conditional on vaccine being distributed to all funding countries, in order of some index of global health priority. I'm not loving this, especially since things haven't even gotten as bad as they're likely to get.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
The only moral thing to do is to finance the research and then open source everything so a vaccine can be produced world wide.
arez 7y ago
why would you work together with the US? They would steal and patent the results in the end or just claim that they invented it because they're the best country anyway and "America First". If the US politics don't change they will be left behind by Europe and China. I know that there are also a lot of US people who don't like Trump, but those people need to step up. Why is nobody protesting? Why isn't there a big Anti-Trump movement? The whole country is either cheering or watching it happen in shock
- jszymborski 7y ago
  I agree the current admin has made the US an uncredible ally. That said, Trump has been the most unpopular president in US history, and there is a huge resistance movement. The president has been impeached, and according to Generic Ballot polling, more people are willing to not vote for his party each day.
  - syshum 7y ago
    Sounds like someone is in a bubble, RCP polling aggregate data shows Trump (before this crisis) at an all time high for popularity, and more popular than Obama at the end of his first term. There is a resistance movement only on the coasts of the US, and in some other Urban, largely democrat area's get out of Urban US and there is no resistance, at most it is slight disagreement, but most people in rural America support Trump completely this includes many in the "Rust Belt" which democrats need to win a national election, support they have completely and utterly lost
    - rfrey 7y ago
      RCP shows Trump's approval level has been below Obama's except for one period of about 4 months at the end of 2019, where they about tracked each other. Trump's disapproval level has consistently been 5-10% above Obama's, except for a couple of periods where Obama's disapproval spiked a bit for a few weeks. It never went above Trump's average disapproval though. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_vs_president_obama_job_approval.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_tru...
      - whoisthemachine 7y ago
        Thanks for finding this! I was trying to find the source for this comment as well. Seems it was mostly hot air.
    - whoisthemachine 7y ago
      Interesting, where did you see that on RCP? On 538, it clearly shows Obama (and most other presidents, with the exception of H.W Bush) had a higher approval rating 1158 days into their presidency - https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/.... I see this polling average for Trump - https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_tru... - and it seems to have a couple of extra points more than 538, but I do not see anything comparing Obama's polls to Trump's polls. I do recall 538 adjusts polls slightly based on bias in the sampled population [0]. Perhaps RCP doesn't take into account bias in polls? [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/
- sailfast 7y ago
  It would be a mistake to conflate "America" and "Americans" with the current administration, generally. There are a lot of good people doing good work that I'm sure would also collaborate and share a global solution to this problem. Also, FWIW there is a considerable anti-Trump movement. You may remember he was recently impeached by the House of Representatives.
- coliveira 7y ago
  There is a big anti-trump movement, but people are unwilling/afraid to protest on the streets. The US has traditionally suppressed protest movements, consider for example occupy WS and Black Lives Matter.
  - tristor 7y ago
    Neither of those movements were "suppressed". That's an extraordinary claim and I'd love to see some evidence. Last time I checked, OWS went on unabated until it collapsed under its own weight due to no clear direction or leadership. BLM continues to this day and performs protests all over the country, some of which have resulted in violence and rioting, yet are not touched by most cities. There are a lot of people, myself included, that don't like Donald Trump, but it is just factually untrue to say that the US is suppressing protests. It's more accurate to say most people are more focused on waking up in the morning, getting to work, and feeding their families than whatever shenanigans are happening around them.
    - coliveira 7y ago
      "Throughout our country’s history, the federal government has used the fear of threats – real or perceived – to conduct surveillance on domestic groups and people who look or act different. Civil rights and anti-Vietnam War activists in the 1960s and 1970s, American Muslim civil rights leaders and academics post-9/11, and the FBI’s recent, expansive racial, religious, and ethnic mapping program are a handful of examples. Modern protest movements speak, associate, and organize through social media. Their tweets, blogs, protests, marches, and die-ins are the trumpets by which they call for reform and social justice. Government monitoring of activists’ protests – simply because these activists dissent and without any evidence of wrongdoing – threatens to discourage them from speaking, associating, and expressing as is their right under the First Amendment. Surveillance of #BlackLivesMatter protests also opens the door to racial profiling because the movement is Black-led." https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/government-watching-blacklivesmatter-and-its-not-okay https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/government-watching...
      - 7y ago
- dang 7y ago
  Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome at any time on HN and certainly not now, so please don't post like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you also broke the guidelines with a personal attack here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22341594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22341594. If I had seen it at the time, I would have replied. We ban accounts that post comments like these, so please don't.
- theferalrobot 7y ago
  You should know this is fake news, if you read the Reuters report they cite as evidence there is no mention of exclusivity just funding. In fact the exact opposite is said. > The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-usa/germany-tries-to-stop-u-s-from-luring-away-firm-seeking-coronavirus-vaccine-idUSKBN2120IV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Of course we'll cooperate. Even Trump can't end that. It might take him leaving before the Europeans start trusting us again (with a lot of justification). But I don't want one solution. I want multiple well funded investigations of different vaccines, all in testing, so when a problem is found with one we still have alternatives.
chronofar 7y ago
It is times like this that make it quite salient how inefficient our systems can be when competition is the primary economic motivator. With things like climate change or space travel, the ill effects of competition over cooperation can be easier to hide from. A global pandemic forces the issue though, and petty nationalism and self-serving competitiveness are exposed plainly as detrimental to the species as a whole. On a smaller scale the TP hoarding is of a similar phenomenon. Scarcity, even when it isn't actually there, drives us all and thus we fulfill the scarcity we were afraid of.
theferalrobot 7y ago
This is unfortunately fake news, if you read the Reuters report they cite as evidence there is no mention of exclusivity just funding. In fact the exact opposite is said. > The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-usa/germany-tries-to-stop-u-s-from-luring-away-firm-seeking-coronavirus-vaccine-idUSKBN2120IV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
- Abimelex 7y ago
  it's not fake news. Please read the updated article from the link you posted above: > Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
  - theferalrobot 7y ago
    Yeah, so there is an unsubstantiated german government source and then the very next sentence the company denies it themselves: >CureVac issued a statement on Sunday, in which it said: “The company rejects current rumors of an acquisition”. Finally they give a quote from a US rep: > The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
    - busymom0 7y ago
      Not sure why you are being downvoted. A statement by the company itself saying it's false is a lot more valuable than a newspaper using anonymous source.
- atombender 7y ago
  Ahem: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald-trump-tried-to-buy-firm-working-on-coronavirus-vaccine/amp/ https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald... According to [Die Welt], Trump was trying to get the Tübingen-based CureVac company — which also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston — to move its research wing to the United States and develop the vaccine “for the U.S. only.” ... On Sunday afternoon, Germany’s Health Ministry told Reuters that its spokesperson had been quoted correctly in the newspaper article, confirming that Washington had attempted to take over the biopharmaceutical company. Government sources indicated that Berlin was now offering CureVac financial incentives to remain in Germany.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

The only moral thing to do is to finance the research and then open source everything so a vaccine can be produced world wide.

arez 7y ago

why would you work together with the US? They would steal and patent the results in the end or just claim that they invented it because they're the best country anyway and "America First". If the US politics don't change they will be left behind by Europe and China. I know that there are also a lot of US people who don't like Trump, but those people need to step up. Why is nobody protesting? Why isn't there a big Anti-Trump movement? The whole country is either cheering or watching it happen in shock

jszymborski 7y ago
I agree the current admin has made the US an uncredible ally. That said, Trump has been the most unpopular president in US history, and there is a huge resistance movement. The president has been impeached, and according to Generic Ballot polling, more people are willing to not vote for his party each day.
- syshum 7y ago
  Sounds like someone is in a bubble, RCP polling aggregate data shows Trump (before this crisis) at an all time high for popularity, and more popular than Obama at the end of his first term. There is a resistance movement only on the coasts of the US, and in some other Urban, largely democrat area's get out of Urban US and there is no resistance, at most it is slight disagreement, but most people in rural America support Trump completely this includes many in the "Rust Belt" which democrats need to win a national election, support they have completely and utterly lost
  - rfrey 7y ago
    RCP shows Trump's approval level has been below Obama's except for one period of about 4 months at the end of 2019, where they about tracked each other. Trump's disapproval level has consistently been 5-10% above Obama's, except for a couple of periods where Obama's disapproval spiked a bit for a few weeks. It never went above Trump's average disapproval though. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_vs_president_obama_job_approval.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_tru...
    - whoisthemachine 7y ago
      Thanks for finding this! I was trying to find the source for this comment as well. Seems it was mostly hot air.
  - whoisthemachine 7y ago
    Interesting, where did you see that on RCP? On 538, it clearly shows Obama (and most other presidents, with the exception of H.W Bush) had a higher approval rating 1158 days into their presidency - https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/.... I see this polling average for Trump - https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_tru... - and it seems to have a couple of extra points more than 538, but I do not see anything comparing Obama's polls to Trump's polls. I do recall 538 adjusts polls slightly based on bias in the sampled population [0]. Perhaps RCP doesn't take into account bias in polls? [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/
sailfast 7y ago
It would be a mistake to conflate "America" and "Americans" with the current administration, generally. There are a lot of good people doing good work that I'm sure would also collaborate and share a global solution to this problem. Also, FWIW there is a considerable anti-Trump movement. You may remember he was recently impeached by the House of Representatives.
coliveira 7y ago
There is a big anti-trump movement, but people are unwilling/afraid to protest on the streets. The US has traditionally suppressed protest movements, consider for example occupy WS and Black Lives Matter.
- tristor 7y ago
  Neither of those movements were "suppressed". That's an extraordinary claim and I'd love to see some evidence. Last time I checked, OWS went on unabated until it collapsed under its own weight due to no clear direction or leadership. BLM continues to this day and performs protests all over the country, some of which have resulted in violence and rioting, yet are not touched by most cities. There are a lot of people, myself included, that don't like Donald Trump, but it is just factually untrue to say that the US is suppressing protests. It's more accurate to say most people are more focused on waking up in the morning, getting to work, and feeding their families than whatever shenanigans are happening around them.
  - coliveira 7y ago
    "Throughout our country’s history, the federal government has used the fear of threats – real or perceived – to conduct surveillance on domestic groups and people who look or act different. Civil rights and anti-Vietnam War activists in the 1960s and 1970s, American Muslim civil rights leaders and academics post-9/11, and the FBI’s recent, expansive racial, religious, and ethnic mapping program are a handful of examples. Modern protest movements speak, associate, and organize through social media. Their tweets, blogs, protests, marches, and die-ins are the trumpets by which they call for reform and social justice. Government monitoring of activists’ protests – simply because these activists dissent and without any evidence of wrongdoing – threatens to discourage them from speaking, associating, and expressing as is their right under the First Amendment. Surveillance of #BlackLivesMatter protests also opens the door to racial profiling because the movement is Black-led." https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/government-watching-blacklivesmatter-and-its-not-okay https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/government-watching...
    - 7y ago
dang 7y ago
Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome at any time on HN and certainly not now, so please don't post like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you also broke the guidelines with a personal attack here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22341594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22341594. If I had seen it at the time, I would have replied. We ban accounts that post comments like these, so please don't.
theferalrobot 7y ago
You should know this is fake news, if you read the Reuters report they cite as evidence there is no mention of exclusivity just funding. In fact the exact opposite is said. > The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-usa/germany-tries-to-stop-u-s-from-luring-away-firm-seeking-coronavirus-vaccine-idUSKBN2120IV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...

NotSammyHagar 7y ago

Of course we'll cooperate. Even Trump can't end that. It might take him leaving before the Europeans start trusting us again (with a lot of justification). But I don't want one solution. I want multiple well funded investigations of different vaccines, all in testing, so when a problem is found with one we still have alternatives.

chronofar 7y ago

It is times like this that make it quite salient how inefficient our systems can be when competition is the primary economic motivator. With things like climate change or space travel, the ill effects of competition over cooperation can be easier to hide from. A global pandemic forces the issue though, and petty nationalism and self-serving competitiveness are exposed plainly as detrimental to the species as a whole. On a smaller scale the TP hoarding is of a similar phenomenon. Scarcity, even when it isn't actually there, drives us all and thus we fulfill the scarcity we were afraid of.

theferalrobot 7y ago

This is unfortunately fake news, if you read the Reuters report they cite as evidence there is no mention of exclusivity just funding. In fact the exact opposite is said. > The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-usa/germany-tries-to-stop-u-s-from-luring-away-firm-seeking-coronavirus-vaccine-idUSKBN2120IV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...

Abimelex 7y ago
it's not fake news. Please read the updated article from the link you posted above: > Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
- theferalrobot 7y ago
  Yeah, so there is an unsubstantiated german government source and then the very next sentence the company denies it themselves: >CureVac issued a statement on Sunday, in which it said: “The company rejects current rumors of an acquisition”. Finally they give a quote from a US rep: > The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
  - busymom0 7y ago
    Not sure why you are being downvoted. A statement by the company itself saying it's false is a lot more valuable than a newspaper using anonymous source.
atombender 7y ago
Ahem: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald-trump-tried-to-buy-firm-working-on-coronavirus-vaccine/amp/ https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald... According to [Die Welt], Trump was trying to get the Tübingen-based CureVac company — which also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston — to move its research wing to the United States and develop the vaccine “for the U.S. only.” ... On Sunday afternoon, Germany’s Health Ministry told Reuters that its spokesperson had been quoted correctly in the newspaper article, confirming that Washington had attempted to take over the biopharmaceutical company. Government sources indicated that Berlin was now offering CureVac financial incentives to remain in Germany.