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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

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.

iszomer 5y ago
There has also been a relatively small culture of dumpster diving (for food) because of it.
sudosysgen 5y 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.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  Other countries have not flown to hundreds of locations to pick up vaccines with hitherto unknown storage conditions.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    The storage conditions are not unknown. There is documentation on every lot to guarantee that they were stored in the proper conditions and to evaluate how they should be stored going forwards. There is also no reason to fly to these locations. There is already the logistic capacity to ship in the proper conditions between these locations and a few central hubs. It just has to be run in reverse. It hasn't been done for hundreds of locations because few countries are as big as the US, but it has been done on a smaller scale by less capable actors.
    - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
      > There is already the logistic capacity to ship in the proper conditions between these locations and a few central hubs. It just has to be run in reverse. You can't just duplicate existing routes. The logistics to collect unused vaccines from endpoints (on an insanely tight clock), would be enormously complex. We'd be setting that up on a nationwide scale, in the middle of a worldwide transportation shortage. Further increasing exportable vaccine production would seem to be a more attainable goal.
- spicybright 5y ago
  It's not like it's one pharmacy throwing out millions in one place. They've all been distributed through a tree of supply chain. A million here, give 2,000 each to distributors to deliver, etc. You essentially have to "undo" that chain faster than the product will go bad to a place it will be utilized in time. Otherwise you'd have to travel to the majority of pharmacies all around the US and some how get that all to the airport. And trucks/delivery drivers are very very expensive at scale.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    You don't have to. You just reduce supply to expected levels of demands instead of throwing out millions of doses at an increasing rate. You don't need to roll back any further than the statewide distribution hubs.
    - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
      > You just reduce supply to expected levels of demands instead of throwing out millions of doses at an increasing rate. I imagine the effectiveness of anti-vax propaganda is tough to incorporate into distribution forecasts.
Kungfuturtle 5y 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 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"?

iszomer 5y ago

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

sudosysgen 5y 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.

l33t2328 5y ago
Other countries have not flown to hundreds of locations to pick up vaccines with hitherto unknown storage conditions.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The storage conditions are not unknown. There is documentation on every lot to guarantee that they were stored in the proper conditions and to evaluate how they should be stored going forwards. There is also no reason to fly to these locations. There is already the logistic capacity to ship in the proper conditions between these locations and a few central hubs. It just has to be run in reverse. It hasn't been done for hundreds of locations because few countries are as big as the US, but it has been done on a smaller scale by less capable actors.
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    > There is already the logistic capacity to ship in the proper conditions between these locations and a few central hubs. It just has to be run in reverse. You can't just duplicate existing routes. The logistics to collect unused vaccines from endpoints (on an insanely tight clock), would be enormously complex. We'd be setting that up on a nationwide scale, in the middle of a worldwide transportation shortage. Further increasing exportable vaccine production would seem to be a more attainable goal.
spicybright 5y ago
It's not like it's one pharmacy throwing out millions in one place. They've all been distributed through a tree of supply chain. A million here, give 2,000 each to distributors to deliver, etc. You essentially have to "undo" that chain faster than the product will go bad to a place it will be utilized in time. Otherwise you'd have to travel to the majority of pharmacies all around the US and some how get that all to the airport. And trucks/delivery drivers are very very expensive at scale.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  You don't have to. You just reduce supply to expected levels of demands instead of throwing out millions of doses at an increasing rate. You don't need to roll back any further than the statewide distribution hubs.
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    > You just reduce supply to expected levels of demands instead of throwing out millions of doses at an increasing rate. I imagine the effectiveness of anti-vax propaganda is tough to incorporate into distribution forecasts.

Kungfuturtle 5y 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 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"?