Some countries don't have enough vaccine not because they can't pay for it. They are just way down in the queue cos others with more cash did a lot of bulk pre-orders.
Vaccines are also in extremely limited supply, globally speaking, and it's not a great look for countries to act is if throwing away millions of doses isn't a big deal while other countries are limited by not getting enough supply.
US and many Europe countries reached a point where the number of vaccines ordered and delivered is higher than the number of people that wants to take the vaccine. My country donated a few million doses that were in danger to expire.
There's a limited supply. Sure, Europe could have negotiated better, or could have chosen to pay more and get more vaccine doses faster. But that just means other countries get less doses. As long as production isn't ramped up enormously, we're dealing with a zero sum game. I think we can look at countries that manage to get a sufficient supply with admiration. Envy, yes.
I agree that in Belgium things are not as well organized as they should, as usual. They should for months they were preparing and plans would be ready and working by the beginning of January. But it turned out nothing was ready, debates about who to give the vaccine first were only starting instead of being started many months before. But at this point none of that really matters: it's simply not the bottleneck. Vaccination centers are ready for thousands of people per day, but only get 100 doses.
By the way I've read and heard about calls for volunteers for hospitals and vaccination centers. Vaccination centers don't really need many people now though because of the low supply.
Isn't the vaccination distribution a zero sum game between nation states? Supply is limited. Some countries will get it sooner than others. Europe lost the bit against several other powers. Not to my surprise, I must say.
Don't you think Europe is supply-constrained? What about India/Russia/China?
If these countries didn't export, Israel wouldn't have any vaccine, Australia wouldn't have any vaccine, Canada wouldn't have any vaccine, New Zealand wouldn't have any vaccine. And let's not even talk about the rest of the world.
But yeah, it's inconvenient. I get it. Greed is good! Let them starve.
And what is your point? The only countries that had a large amount of doses in the first few months of 2021 were the countries producing the vaccine. There was no way that the US would produce for export before vaccinating their own population.
Canada had no local production. There was literally nothing they could do but wait. Its of course a problem not to have local production. But it’s not a lack of orders that was the issue, everything was ordered early in 2020, there was just no doses available.
Most developed countries seem to be able to deploy close to 100% of the vaccines provided so far, modulo whatever strategy they have chosen regarding keeping some amount of second doses in storage. So that doesn't seem to be bottleneck.
Israel simply paid more and bought a larger amount of vaccines delivered earlier. Which is smart but it's not a strategy that all countries can replicate, not because we cannot afford it but simply because there is a bottleneck in production. There is not enough vaccines for all no matter how much we pay, so we would end up competing in price for no real speed up.
Lesson for other countries next time: order early enough from 5 different vaccines such that any two working will vaccinate your country. Make sure that your order comes with up front money to setup a supply chain for you, separate from the rest of the world.
Once any vaccine hits adjust orders up as required. If any vaccine makes it late enough that you don't need it, donate to a poor country or just pay and ask your doses be destroyed, thanks for trying.
Nevertheless, it's still vaccines that other countries can't use, and presumably other countries weren't expecting to provide Canadians' vaccinations when they were purchasing their vaccination stock.
I think this is also where the size and 'buying power' of the EU actually works against it. The UK has bought something like 5 courses of vaccine for each of its population across numerous suppliers, expecting that a few of them will be damp squibs or arrive/be approved too late or not at all.
I don't really know - but I don't think the EU is actually in a position to do the same given the size of the combined poplulation and the limited political appeal of wealthier countries to subsidise others for vaccines that won't be needed.
I think we all in Europe are in a similar situation (based in comments of friends of different countries), so it seems to me that is not because the internal organization of delivering / injecting the vaccine but the production of it.
The production is going very slow, and therefore the rollout it's super slow...
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