Quote:
Originally Posted by Rockstar
[...] You gave it away? You never had it. Because your pathetic useless government failed to act.
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In the EU health was considered a member state competence, so it was not prepared for this. It was about avoiding competition to generate a more even distribution.
"The member states’ approval of the European Commission vaccine plan on June 17, 2020 — which set aside the vaccine “alliance” initiated by France and Germany, later joined by Italy and the Netherlands, for a joint procurement led by the EU’s largest economies — stemmed from the idea of avoiding competition over vaccines inside the EU.
Yet, this put a huge burden on the unprepared commission, which then treated vaccines as a trade matter rather than an emergency negotiation, preferring lower prices over timely deliveries.
Widespread vaccine skepticism was also a problem, and when negotiations were carried out last summer, Europeans thought they largely had the pandemic under control, so they were not desperate for a vaccine. But COVID-19’s variants proved them wrong and ultimately the EU fell behind in the rollout, especially compared to the speed of the United Kingdom or Israel."
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order...es-on-vaccines
Some things could have been better, but there was at least an idea, and they supported 27 member states
and others.
The US is
one country. From january '21:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN29T0FY