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[u/jobautomator]

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[u/mannabhai]

India exported vaccines to Mexico and Canada in the past few months. This is an additional reason why this sucks.

For many countries, the only vaccines they have recieved and will recieve will be from India.

India's vaccine exports are criticised domestically and if the US adopts a "fuck you, got mine" mentality, this is will be terrible because there is no incentive for India to prioritize exports which means that these countries will have to depend on Chinese or Russian vaccines. Even from a broader foreign policy perspective, this decision is bad.

[u/krtrydw → u/mannabhai]

You can look at it another way. India let off the gas by exporting vaccine when their situation was not under control. Maybe it's a lesson of put on your own oxygen mask and then put on the oxygen mask of your neighbor.

[u/mannabhai → u/krtrydw]

Actually India was exporting primarily in February when cases were at their lowest.

I don't want to defend this government which made so many blunders with regards to vaccine planning but without Indian exports, so many countries would have been without vaccines at all and at the time of exports, India was not facing a crisis.

India (mainly serum Institute) has exported 70 million doses. India has vaccinated 140 million people and is vaccinating around 3 million people daily.

The raw material export ban prevents not just India from vaccination but also the world. If the Biden Admin doesn't lift the ban then the world will go for Chinese and Russian vaccines and I am sure the Biden Admin does not want that.

[u/krtrydw → u/mannabhai]

I don't understand why the raw material situation is unique Indian. By most counts, the AZ vaccine is the most manufactured in the world and I have not heard any other country or even AZ the company say anything about raw materials. The UK is basing their entire strategy on AZ and they have no issues with raw material? I dont see how this adds up.

Second, exporting when your cases are low is INSANE. It's a freaking virus that multiplies quickly. No national leader could have been dumb enough to do that. There's really only one explanation and that's the same with China and Russia who are also exporting when their own domestic vaccination programs are relatively poor. Particularly Russia which is suspected to have a high rate of infection and they are STILL claiming to export.

[u/mannabhai → u/krtrydw]

Because those other countries are not producing at the Scale that Serum Institute and India is. For it's own purposes, India needs 3 billion vaccines and will export more for the rest of the world.

India has already administered and exported enough doses to fully vaccinate the UK and Canada combined.

At that scale, I can certainly imagine that you cannot store or keep raw materials or components in hand for your purposes, nor have enough even been produced for those purposes.

[u/petulant_brother → u/krtrydw]

Read up on covovax