Like he said, there aren’t factories sitting around that can start spinning COVID vaccines out if only parents were removed from them.
Besides, an open patent scheme means that any pharma company can sell the vaccine. And I guarantee that the vast majority of companies that will start doing so will be fly by might operators that will take advantage of desperate countries to sell them crap that will end up killing people and simply damage vaccines in the eyes of people all over the world.
What we really need is for governments and potentially private operators to invest money towards setting up more production capacities among the many major vaccine manufacturers that already exist.
The Indian government, for example, had months to support the Serum Institute’s expansion plans, but simply did not. It’s only now that they’ve agreed to let them sell their vaccines for slightly higher prices of about $5.5 to state governments and about $8 to private entities per dose (although they have still capped the price at $3 for themselves, which is basically a political ploy so they can hand out free vaccines ahead of several elections coming up this year), that has allowed them to start expanding.
What’s happening in India is a massive failure of governance at the federal level which the government is trying to find any excuse to distract from.