The U.S. can t keep hoarding Covid-19 vaccines from the world
Vaccinating the world is more important than defending corporate profits.
The U.S. has enough vaccine doses to vaccinate every American and then some.Anjali Nair / MSNBC
April 9, 2021, 9:48 AM UTC
The American vaccination campaign is finally humming, a seemingly night-and-day difference from the mad scramble to obtain the minuscule number of vaccine doses available just two months ago. But because nothing is simple, there s a catch. You see, the speed of the U.S. vaccination program is built on a series of contracts the federal government signed with pharmaceutical companies at the start of their race for a vaccine.
The Health 202: AstraZeneca s vaccine is still considered safe to take Paige Winfield Cunningham
with Alexandra Ellerbeck The available science still indicates the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is safe for people to take, even as regulators investigate a potential red flag. That’s the nuance vaccine experts frustrated by the recent barrage of negative headlines want the American public to understand.
“I feel like in general the press has not been doing a good job,”
former Food and Drug Administration scientist Luciana Borio told me.
The coverage of AstraZeneca’s fumbles, she said, feels “alarmist.” “People do not want to take the vaccine in Europe now, and if that’s because of misinformation, then the pandemic’s going to continue to remain very active globally, which means everybody is vulnerable,” Borio said.
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Quick Fix Federal health officials knew about problems at a vaccine plant well before it ruined 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Billions of dollars in new funding is arriving too late for the many contact tracing programs that have already fallen behind in tracking Covid cases.