This is the best summary I could come up with:
At least 215 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines purchased by EU countries at the height of the pandemic have since been thrown away at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of €4 billion, an analysis by POLITICO reveals.
Since the first coronavirus vaccines were approved in late 2020, EU countries have collectively taken delivery of 1.5 billion doses (more than three for every person in Europe).
Top of the scale is Estonia, which binned more than one dose per inhabitant, followed closely by Germany, which also threw away the largest raw volume of jabs.
POLITICO’s calculations are based on numbers from 19 European countries — 15 that supplied us with direct figures, and four where volumes were reported in local media.
Vaccine-makers have also since introduced newer versions that are adapted to the latest coronavirus variants, making older jabs obsolete and more likely to be discarded.
It was during that frenzied time that the EU entered into its single biggest contract to purchase 1.1 billion doses from Pfizer and BioNTech.
The original article contains 646 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Great, they were useless
What?
They can’t hear you over their tin foil full body suit
‘Vaccines were from the height of the pandemic‘. I believe they meant that since these doses are 2-3 years old, and the virus has mutated several times… these destroyed vaccines are ineffective at this point. Not that vaccines in general don’t work.
That’s what I was hoping they meant, but the wording and post history made me think otherwise
I agree the doses should have been discarded, the headline is more about the logistics and distribution of vaccines in a pandemic situation
I just quickly read the bot TLDR, and assumed the best intentions by the poster… I forget myself at times.
Hard to find exactly why, but there is this fragment:
Vaccine-makers have also since introduced newer versions that are adapted to the latest coronavirus variants, making older jabs obsolete and more likely to be discarded.
Also vaccines don’t last forever, and at some point these ones would become risky enough that it wouldn’t be advisable to give them to those who didn’t get any (original version or recent).
This headline speaks to the logistics and distribution problems, as well as things like patents and profit.
There will be other pandemics in the future, and we need to do better.
Honestly, except for the ridiculous levels of vaccine hesitancy, I think the world gets a passing grade for this pandemic. The response (from scientists not politicians) was fast and strong… and, for an emergency, the amount of waste wasn’t unreasonable.
And here I am trying to get a voluntary booster. Fml.
Why was the EU stockpiling so many while Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America were reliant on the Sinovac/Sinopharm/CanSino vaccines?
Yep, one of my kids got freaking Sputnik here in Guatemala since our president is an idiot and spent the whole initial vaccine budget on sputnik and then it was impossible for him to travel to the US for several years since they don’t accept Sputnik and he can’t get another vaccine since he’s already in the system as having gotten one.
Seems like the big EU/US countries stockpiled the “acceptable” vaccines and left you guys in a shit position tbh
The egregiously overextended demand for the few “acceptable” vaccines drove prices above what a country like Guatemala could reasonably accept, forcing the adoption of Sputnik
The thing is Russia was Russia (who saw that coming) and took our money and then kept delaying delivery. By the time the Sputnik came through neighboring countries were getting their orders of EU/US vaccines.
I mean, to some degree it just makes economic sense: the Sputnik vaccine was $10/dose compared to the $30/dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. If Guatemala has to burn it’s entire budget to get enough Sputnik vaccines, I don’t think the budget would have supported buying Pfizer/Moderna ones.
IIRC they were subsidized a good deal for developing nations.
Yeah, might have been. Can’t remember how much for the life of me.
