View Single Post
Old 01-23-2021, 06:59 PM   #575
opendoor
Franchise Player
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Exp:
Default

The US buying more doses wouldn't have made them get produced any faster in the first quarter. It might have made the companies prioritize the US a bit more, but even that is questionable. The US is already getting about 85-90% of Moderna's worldwide production, so there isn't really much room to increase deliveries there.

For Pfizer, they didn't take OWS money (and thus weren't beholden to the US) and were negotiating with a bunch of countries all at the same time. When the US signed the agreement with them in late July, Pfizer had already concluded a deal with the UK, was 10-15 days from concluding deals with Japan and Canada, and was negotiating with the EU for a very large order. So the US getting all of their production was never in the cards, no matter how many doses they ordered. Any additional doses that Pfizer offered to sell would have mostly been arriving in Q2 and beyond.


As for the other stuff, every country is going through the exact same things except to an even greater degree. The federal government in Canada gave rough guidelines for prioritization, but ultimately the provinces distribute them how they see fit. The provinces don't need the federal government to hold their hands in determining who to prioritize, so I don't see why states would either. I mean, I know the US medical system is a mess, but it's not that hard to figure it out. If the Yukon and its 35K population could come up with a clear and robust vaccination strategy in December, there's no reason every single state can't.

Ultimately, the US is currently administering doses about as fast as they can be manufactured, so manufacturing is clearly the bottleneck at this point. So while I'm sure there are tons of issues (like there are everywhere) and the federal government under Trump was useless, at the end of the day the rollout can only occur as fast as doses are being produced.
opendoor is offline