Vaccine Politics, not Diplomacy

1. Is there still hope for humanity? One that looks towards betterment of the entire species, without regard to race, gender, creed and nationality? The evidence from the worst global pandemic since 1918 isn't entirely promising.
2. First off, the speed an experimental "synthetic mRNA" approach could be applied to extinguishing a newly identified virus signature is astounding. Within 10 months, the US FDA had approved a vaccine from scratch. One-up for science. 
3. What comes next is a bit more sobering. Various vaccines were also developed by different countries with different motives, the most common being self-interest in protecting their own population. The ones with the higher resources that has successfully developed their own vaccines are the ones with the biggest responsibilities of sharing excess supply, and not pro-bono, but sold perhaps at a rate that could be deemed more as cost-plus rather than the existing entirely unique American paradigm to allow excessive profiteering off healthcare. More accurately, is to benefit off someone else's suffering.
4. China used its vaccines as a softer version of power projection. The hell with allowing full transparency of its clinical trial results. 
5. The US used the full shield afforded by IP laws, enforced via FTA/WTO regulations to safeguard its US leadership in the mRNA approach that has wide repercussions for many other disease states. The softening of the stance is not making it easier for other countries to adopt the mRNA manufacturing capabilities as trade secrets will probably be deployed in full.
6. UK's AZ goes global with its narrative of first to deploy and how hard it was to get there but they did it to shore up support in a post-Brexit period when the United Kingdom is at its most divided. Silence the fact that it was a vaccine developed primarily for MERS, and the C19 had many MERS features, enabling the quick adaptation of a vaccine. AZ speaks of its sales at cost while Vaccitech the vaccine developer IPOs on NASDAQ. Nevermind that the AZ adenovirus route seems to have equal vaccine effectiveness as China's Sinovac, the narrative being peddled is the China vaccine is unproven and dangerous.
7. Russia? Who knows what's happening there.
8. And at the end of the spectrum are third world countries signing up for Covax, thirsting after a cooperative scheme that still sits below the priority ladder of the manufacturers who deal directly with countries.
9. Malaysia's strategy of ignoring Covax and going directly to the manufacturers was good, but hampered by unwillingness to pay the price and attempting to haggle. Doing so means we sit further behind in the queue while hoping the manufacturers don't encounter supply chain issues and capacity bottlenecks. In the meantime, while Malaysia thinks that with the booking procurement done all is done and dusted, other countries sneak up with advanced orders and which gets delivery to be pushed back on the vaccines. So much for diplomacy.
10. Whining about is good. Doing something about it, opening up the wallet to ensure deliveries are on-time, beg/borrow but don't steal to get ahead of the bulk volumes required to vaccinate, is so much better. Let's not ask for public understanding of the issues to spare the blushes or embellish our credentials of morality. That is not the world we are in.