Covid19 - Vaccine Imperialism

  “In a war—which this situation is, though we fight against an invisible enemy—you need to do whatever you can to make it stop,” Zeman told me in an email. “I frankly don’t think that receiving vaccines means losing independence, or any similar repercussions. It’s a business deal, for God’s sake.” Czech's President Milos Zeman

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, he said that fears of Moscow and Beijing leveraging their influence over receiving countries are overblown. “We grossly exaggerate the payoff you get from trying to play geopolitics with humanitarian crises,” McFaul said. Plus, “it doesn’t do any good to say that China or Russia are using their vaccines to undermine our interests if you don’t have something else to offer.”

 

The above are two quotes from The Atlantic to emphasise what vaccines are all about, the saving of lives, not fighting a war of influence. But this has turned out to be a war as far as the Americans and the 5 eyes countries are concerned. It is another case of you are with us or against us. If a country is with the Americans, they must not use Russian or Chinese vaccines or they would be treated as against the Americans.  Some countries that have bought Chinese and Russian vaccines have stopped using them even after receiving the vaccines and paying for them for fear of offending the Empire.

This is the new American Imperialist War. The Americans would not allow its allies, in particular the EU countries and its cronies spread across the world to use Russian and Chinese vaccines. EU is facing the biggest brunt, with insufficient supply of the American vaccines but unable to accept the use of Russian and Chinese vaccines.  The simple tool to prevent them from doing so is approval.  Vaccines that were not approved by the American or EU authorities cannot be used in their respective countries. Germany and France and a few other EU countries have mooted to bring in Russian and Chinese vaccines but have backed off due to American opposition. A few eastern EU countries defied the ban and went ahead to have Russian and Chinese vaccines for their people.

The Americans are using the control and use of the vaccines to define their Empire and to control members of the Empire. In a way this is like playing God, who can have the vaccines and live and who cannot have the vaccines and die. The world is now divided into two camps, the American Empire and the rest of the world. China and Russian combined have distributed their vaccines to more than 100 countries outside the influence of the Empire, some getting the vaccines free, some at minimal cost.

The American Empire would want to do the same but unfortunately they were not able to produce even enough for themselves. And with the Americans first policy, more than 95% of American produced vaccines are kept for domestic use, leaving a trickle for their neighbours and allies. This pathetic situation risking the lives of hundreds of millions of American allies did not deter the Americans to be more magnanimous in a world crisis to loosen their grips and allow their allies to use Russian or Chinese vaccines.  They die their own business. There is a saying that it is easier to buy American weapons than buying vaccines from the Americans.

In the meantime, having cornered the vaccine market, the Americans are blowing their horns that they would share their vaccines with their allies and cronies, caveat, after they have vaccinated all the Americans. They are ramping up production but at the rate it is going, it would take at least another year before they could vaccinate all Americans. The rest of the Empire have to wait for their turns, if the day comes.

With the efficacy and immuned life of the vaccines at only 6 months or so, all Americans would have to go for another round of vaccinations before even all the Americans are vaccinated.  This is looking like the proverbial dog chasing its tail, an unending story of manufacturing the vaccines to meet and unstoppable demand. When then would the American allies have a chance to have their people vaccinated to the level of herd immunity with just the American vaccines? The Americans could only provide for 20% of the needs of their allies and cronies at best. This is American Imperialism at its best.

The rest of the world would likely have their full share of the vaccines from China and Russian. India was trying to fill the gap for the Empire with licence to manufacture AstraZeneca. This too is facing huge problems in the home front, rising infection rate and insufficient supply to feed the domestic demands. India has since stopped exporting its limited supply of the vaccines. What could make matter worse is that AstraZeneca is facing a credibility crisis. Many countries have stopped using AstraZeneca or posed stringent limits on its use.

American Vaccine Imperialism is here to stay and the allies and cronies are likely to pay a heavy price in the lives of their people. Not using Russian and Chinese vaccines can be deadly.  Even when the Americans are able to manufacture enough vaccines for export, maybe in 3 or 5 years, the cost could also be prohibitive to many of their allies and crony countries, not counting the difficulties in storing the -70C vaccines.

The rest of the world can do without this neo evil American Vaccine Imperialism. And they have China and Russian to thank for.