Bill and Melinda Gates wrote in their 2021 Annual Letter published Wednesday that they are concerned the pandemic will create “immunity inequality,†where only the wealthiest people have access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Already, wealthy nations have spent months prepurchasing doses of vaccine to start immunizing their people the moment those vaccines are approved,†wrote Melinda Gates. “But as things stand now, low- and middle-income countries will only be able to cover about one out of five people who live there over the next year. In a world where global health is local, that should concern all of us.â€
How do allegedly intelligent people get so ignorant and
blitheringly STOOOOOOOOOOOPID?!
The Pfizer vaccine has to be transported and stored until usage at ~-90F. It is utterly unsuited for almost all of Africa, most of Asia, and much of South and Central America.
The Moderna vaccine has to be transported and stored until usage at ~0F. It is poorly suited for almost all of Africa, most of Asia, and much of South and Central America.
I have zero information to confirm this, but I suspect that AstraZeneca's vaccine being much more suitable for less developed countries' logistics is a factor in AstraZeneca not having applied for FDA EUA. In the less than 7 weeks from Pfizer receiving EUA through 6 AM 1/26 Pfizer and Moderna have delivered over 44M doses of the 400M currently under contract,
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations . I suspect that Trump (et al) decided that the Pfizer and Moderna purchase contracts and delivery schedules were sufficient (states' performance prove that!) and had the FDA and AstraZeneca not push for EUA (which would trigger a 300M-dose purchase contract) so that AstraZeneca's vaccine would be more available outside of the US.
More on topic, Bill and Melinda Gates are
near-ignorant rich people throwing money into what they think are solutions. Emphasis on near-
ignorant (putting it very kindly).