Vaccine wars

The announcement of USA “buying” 1/2 billion doses for the world’s most disadvantaged countries causes me a pause for thought. UK and independently AZ (University of Oxford) policy of supplying vaccine on a not for profit basis is very different both philosophically and commercially perhaps giving a flavour of the differing approaches to future world crises. Less clear is the position of Russian and Chinese politics with “free” vaccine distribution governed by command economics and at least anecdotal reports of linkage to strategic aims. With little hard data available to verify such claims much is circumspect but as any readers of my previous posts will understand I do take the view that this not so soft use of power by these centralised non democratic states is something that we here in Europe should take seriously.