I’m extrapolating from the limited information in the GP’s exasperation, but the usual thread of thought for people angry about doses going to waste is that there are countries that lack supply, distribution, or suffer other forms of vaccine inequity, that these doses could have been gifted to prior to expiration.
North Korea is a regional example.
North Korea repeatedly declined any (free) vaccine offers.
As is rational, I hate to say it, but western countries being the enemy in their eyes would make any gift seem like a potential trojan horse, I can see why they would avoid any such risk.
They also rejected the Chinese and Russian vaccines. China and Russia are pretty much as much of an ally as North Korea is gonna get.
Any "trojan horse" is a propaganda one. Kim knows exactly how they work, but the act of improving lifes of North Koreans via "western" act would undermine their own propaganda.
They will gladly starve their people if they can blame USA for that.
I agree. They pursue maximum preservation of power, local optimization at the detriment of their people.
Yup. None the less, I do not think the reality of the situation helps people who feel upset by the way vaccines ended up being shared (or not).
If we have another pandemic in the near future, I expect most of the same behaviors.
As mentioned in the article (that which it is apparently vital never to read on the Orange Website), they did give away 44m doses; they failed to find takers for the remainder. This is fairly common; there's significant
supply of mRNA vaccines (including donations of surplus) now.
Expiration dates on medicine are largely fictional.
Depends on the medicine and the form it is kept in.
Sure, if you want to be the country which takes even the slightest risk of putting millions of people in danger in another in another country. Talk about liability.