Hacker News Reader

Comment by HugoDaniel | Hacker News Reader

I am a EU citizen, my standards are much higher.

EU didn't had to sell their citizens healthcare data to move up the stack (like Israel did). The EU negotiations with these Big Pharma corps made it wait for these 3 countries (Israel, UK and USA). Vaccinations started 1 or 2 months later in EU (depending on country).

A fair comparison would be the data of today in EU with the data from 1 or 2 months ago in those countries (per capita).

But the big questions are:

Why did we have to negotiate vaccines for a global pandemic? Why are countries moving up the stack with Big Pharma? Why is the vaccination rate higher in USA than in Mozambique?

View on HN

The pharma companies you mention are all working hard to supply a vaccine to purchasers, at cost.

The idea that they have some sort of profit motive and are deliberately delaying the EU is not true. Accounts of journalists, and the companies, suggest EU delayed contracts being signed because of internal disagreements, and haggling over contractual terms.

To be honest, I don't know a thing about this topic. I just found it odd that you seemed to be acknowledging that what you called a lie could actually have been the truth. You still seem to be acknowledge that the EU is facing setbacks.

Why negotiate? Because it's a scarce resource and has to be allocated somehow.

My understanding was, that the delay was mostly because the EU went through a fast track version of the normal certification process while the UK and the US used emergency certifications.

IMHO, it is not important who started first, but about how fast you get to 65+% of vaccinations. I don't have any issue with delays early on, but right now this mixture of political power games, blaming, panic and agenda pushing is risking the whole European vaccination campaign.

> A fair comparison would be the data of today in EU with the data from 1 or 2 months ago in those countries (per capita).

Why is this a fair comparison? Was the EU frozen in time for 1-2 months last year during which they couldn't respond to the virus?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com