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Comment by mynegation | Hacker News Reader

1. We do not have our own plants capable of producing covid vaccines. 2. United States stopped all vaccine exports. We got all vaccines from Europe. 3. We did not pay producers through the nose like UK or Israel did which affected our place in the queue. 4. Production scale ups and problems in January-February slowed down the shipments significantly relative to what was promised by producers.

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>2. United States stopped all vaccine exports.

There has never been a US vaccine ban (see my comment elsewhere). The US did, in fact, pay every pharmaceutical company with a vaccine in development huge amounts of money for enough doses for the entire country from each company. Basically, the US was the firstest with the mostest.

>We got all vaccines from Europe.

... because Canada's bet on CanSino failed.

> 3. We did not pay producers through the nose like UK or Israel did which affected our place in the queue.

This is obviously a huge mistake when the vaccines basically pay for themselves.

Same mistake the EU made. Very little understanding of what they're actually getting.

Although from what i understand you had to buy them before they figured out if they worked. So either hope you get lucky with what one you buy, or pay through the nose for all of them which is cost prohibitive.

Cost prohibitive but still net revenue positive to governments, even with that uncertainty.

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