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Comment by jacekm | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, in Europe, we largely rejected the russian COVID vaccine. In theory we had good reasons, the vaccine was a bit shady, but I always wondered how much geopolitics played the role and how much it was really the problem with russian manufacturing standards.

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> in Europe, we largely rejected the russian COVID vaccine. In theory we had good reasons, the vaccine was a bit shady

That is an understantement. The Russians publicly acknowlaged the vaccine aproval had been rushed and international protocols hadn't been met. And that is what they said publicly.

Since more reputable vaccines were comming online from other sources, why take the risk?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200819152533/https://www.teleg...

The problem is two folded: corruption is an institution in Russia, and there's no opacity.

It's very hard to trust something coming out of their system. It's something inherited from the USSR.

Apparently this isn't even being reported in the news in Russia, just in the local news.

Or for example, Trump as president sent COVID tests for Putin, when the pandemic started, in secret. Why?

Well the Russians themselves also considered the vaccine a geopolitical and propaganda tool, which is why they rushed it so much.

I’m sure geopolitics had some effect, like it might have in China, but I think that just begs the question how serious the virus was for governments to say nah we will wait until we get our own vaccine from our trusted sources. Russia has vaccine skepticism too entirely if their own making.

In Europe’s defense, which is a very broad thing to speak of anyway, they had a vaccine either already there or close enough so why give Putin any credence when you could wait just a little bit longer?

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