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I'm not sure that I would call the number of Pfitzer/BioNTech vaccines exported to young people in Israel fair so that they can party, while my parents inside t

I'm not sure that I would call the number of Pfitzer/BioNTech vaccines exported to young people in Israel fair so that they can party, while my parents inside the EU are waiting locked in for half a year now because they are scared of dying (and some of their friends already dead from COVID :( )

inglor_cz 6y ago
The EU decided to spend 750 billion euro of money it does not have (on credit - see [0]) for post-Covid recovery, but at the same time decided to save as much as possible on vaccines. I think that 'penny wise, pound foolish' applies. It would be unfair to Israel if they paid extra surcharge for their vaccines and later were told by European authorities "sorry, we will confiscate them, bad luck." If we instead paid some 10 extra euro per dose, it would have added up to about 1 per cent of the planned recovery fund - and an extra factory or two could have been built during last autumn to start cranking out the vaccines by millions as soon as approved. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-agrees-on-750-billion-euro-recovery-fund/av-54252633 https://www.dw.com/en/eu-agrees-on-750-billion-euro-recovery...
- ThalesX 6y ago
  Note that for a lot of countries, with perhaps less than competent governments, that money will end up right alongside where our tax money goes, in the hands of the corrupt.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    It doesn't matter where the money goes in the grand scheme. What matters is that we have enough vaccines to end the pandemic. Whatever we needed to do to achieve this is what we should have done instead of worrying about hypothetical corruption and penny pinching.
CyberRage 6y ago
Wow, you almost make it seem like Israel has done something wrong. Nope, it was EU. the EU wanted to wait for final, concrete results before mass adoption. The EU was very skeptical regarding the vaccines. the EU wanted to perform bulk orders as a union which complicated the ordering process. The issue is not necessary the number of vaccines but the entire infrastructure to ship, cool and vaccinate people. Israel had good existing infrastructure, willingness to pay up-front and high demand for the vaccine. * will note that Israel also agreed to share vaccination data with Pfizer to locate any anomalies\problems
- xiphias2 6y ago
  There's no issue with the infrastructure, the Pfizer vaccines are not coming, because Israel has priority. I'm not saying Israel did anything wrong, they are protecting their population and payed the price for it, while EU was trying to get the price of the vaccine down instead of thinking about the consequences of every lost day. Also if infrastructure whould be a problem, US solved it by just hoarding vaccines: at the end of the year they had 40M Moderna vaccines on stock, they weren't able to use it, but they didn't give it to other countries.
  - CyberRage 6y ago
    France, a while back, was receiving good numbers but were failing to keep up in terms of demand\infrastructure. I think now EU is far more active when it comes to the efforts but initially, they were not. It seems like there is more resistance in the EU to vaccination and data sharing than in Israel.
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      There's resistance to AstraZeneca vaccine, and in my country (Hungary) to Sinopharm and SPUTNIK-V. Russian troops invaded Hungary in the past, so there's not much trust in a Russian vaccine, we trust the EU and US more, but the government is laundering lots of money by getting vaccines from the east (they payed $31 per dose for Sinopharm vaccine)
ben_w 6y ago
“Fair” isn’t well defined at the best of times. I certainly want this all over ASAP, the vaccination isn’t as fast as I want; my biggest concern right now is the overlap between anti-mask-and-and-lockdown protestors and anti-vaccination protestors.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  I wish anti-vaccination protest would be real, that would mean that I would get my own vaccine faster, but I don't see that happening.
cdash 6y ago
Just so you know, this sounds a lot like classic european anti-semitism.
- remirk 6y ago
  I have never really understood why you can't criticize Israeli politics without it sounding like antisemitism.
  - Ma8ee 6y ago
    It doesn’t sound like antisemitism. Some people choose to pretend all criticism of the state of Israel is. -Israel is an apartheid state. -You fucking nazi!
  - ars 6y ago
    Nah, that particular comment was not antisemitism. But to answer your question: There are a TON of antisemitic people in the world, but they know they can't talk that way, so they pretend that are "anti-Israel" instead. Most people can see right through that, some can't. This doesn't happen to other countries, so the situation with Israel is unique.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  I'm half Jewish (49% according to 23andMe), and I have a picture of 10 people of my own family killed in a mass grave, so I couldn't be farther from an anti-semite. Also I have no problem with Israel, as I said (I have far relatives there). What I don't like is the mix of price based capitalistic distribution for the countries, but not priced based capitalisic distribution of vaccines for the people. It's fake humanitarian and fake capitalism at the same time.
  - hfjfktkrkf 6y ago
    Just imagine govmts auctioning vaccines. That's how you start a revolution. And isn't the point of govs to take care of their own people? Otherwise rich countries should right now start spending their money on solving poor countries issues, like lack of a working healthcare system.
ars 6y ago
Israel paid a LOT more for the vaccine to ensure early supply. They are also tiny - a lot smaller than you might think, they are not really hogging all that much supply in terms of absolute numbers. And finally they agreed to be the research study for the world, so what they are doing does have value, even for your parents in the EU. In particular they will answer the question: If you immunize everyone does COVID stop?

inglor_cz 6y ago

The EU decided to spend 750 billion euro of money it does not have (on credit - see [0]) for post-Covid recovery, but at the same time decided to save as much as possible on vaccines. I think that 'penny wise, pound foolish' applies. It would be unfair to Israel if they paid extra surcharge for their vaccines and later were told by European authorities "sorry, we will confiscate them, bad luck." If we instead paid some 10 extra euro per dose, it would have added up to about 1 per cent of the planned recovery fund - and an extra factory or two could have been built during last autumn to start cranking out the vaccines by millions as soon as approved. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-agrees-on-750-billion-euro-recovery-fund/av-54252633 https://www.dw.com/en/eu-agrees-on-750-billion-euro-recovery...

ThalesX 6y ago
Note that for a lot of countries, with perhaps less than competent governments, that money will end up right alongside where our tax money goes, in the hands of the corrupt.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  It doesn't matter where the money goes in the grand scheme. What matters is that we have enough vaccines to end the pandemic. Whatever we needed to do to achieve this is what we should have done instead of worrying about hypothetical corruption and penny pinching.

CyberRage 6y ago

Wow, you almost make it seem like Israel has done something wrong. Nope, it was EU. the EU wanted to wait for final, concrete results before mass adoption. The EU was very skeptical regarding the vaccines. the EU wanted to perform bulk orders as a union which complicated the ordering process. The issue is not necessary the number of vaccines but the entire infrastructure to ship, cool and vaccinate people. Israel had good existing infrastructure, willingness to pay up-front and high demand for the vaccine. * will note that Israel also agreed to share vaccination data with Pfizer to locate any anomalies\problems

xiphias2 6y ago
There's no issue with the infrastructure, the Pfizer vaccines are not coming, because Israel has priority. I'm not saying Israel did anything wrong, they are protecting their population and payed the price for it, while EU was trying to get the price of the vaccine down instead of thinking about the consequences of every lost day. Also if infrastructure whould be a problem, US solved it by just hoarding vaccines: at the end of the year they had 40M Moderna vaccines on stock, they weren't able to use it, but they didn't give it to other countries.
- CyberRage 6y ago
  France, a while back, was receiving good numbers but were failing to keep up in terms of demand\infrastructure. I think now EU is far more active when it comes to the efforts but initially, they were not. It seems like there is more resistance in the EU to vaccination and data sharing than in Israel.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    There's resistance to AstraZeneca vaccine, and in my country (Hungary) to Sinopharm and SPUTNIK-V. Russian troops invaded Hungary in the past, so there's not much trust in a Russian vaccine, we trust the EU and US more, but the government is laundering lots of money by getting vaccines from the east (they payed $31 per dose for Sinopharm vaccine)

ben_w 6y ago

“Fair” isn’t well defined at the best of times. I certainly want this all over ASAP, the vaccination isn’t as fast as I want; my biggest concern right now is the overlap between anti-mask-and-and-lockdown protestors and anti-vaccination protestors.

xiphias2 6y ago
I wish anti-vaccination protest would be real, that would mean that I would get my own vaccine faster, but I don't see that happening.

cdash 6y ago

Just so you know, this sounds a lot like classic european anti-semitism.

remirk 6y ago
I have never really understood why you can't criticize Israeli politics without it sounding like antisemitism.
- Ma8ee 6y ago
  It doesn’t sound like antisemitism. Some people choose to pretend all criticism of the state of Israel is. -Israel is an apartheid state. -You fucking nazi!
- ars 6y ago
  Nah, that particular comment was not antisemitism. But to answer your question: There are a TON of antisemitic people in the world, but they know they can't talk that way, so they pretend that are "anti-Israel" instead. Most people can see right through that, some can't. This doesn't happen to other countries, so the situation with Israel is unique.
xiphias2 6y ago
I'm half Jewish (49% according to 23andMe), and I have a picture of 10 people of my own family killed in a mass grave, so I couldn't be farther from an anti-semite. Also I have no problem with Israel, as I said (I have far relatives there). What I don't like is the mix of price based capitalistic distribution for the countries, but not priced based capitalisic distribution of vaccines for the people. It's fake humanitarian and fake capitalism at the same time.
- hfjfktkrkf 6y ago
  Just imagine govmts auctioning vaccines. That's how you start a revolution. And isn't the point of govs to take care of their own people? Otherwise rich countries should right now start spending their money on solving poor countries issues, like lack of a working healthcare system.

ars 6y ago

Israel paid a LOT more for the vaccine to ensure early supply. They are also tiny - a lot smaller than you might think, they are not really hogging all that much supply in terms of absolute numbers. And finally they agreed to be the research study for the world, so what they are doing does have value, even for your parents in the EU. In particular they will answer the question: If you immunize everyone does COVID stop?