It exposes a serious flaw in globalization, doesn’t it?
How so?
Economic globalization argues for locating production at places with economies of scale, capital, and labor with free flow of goods and services. In the past year, we’ve seen borders shut down and export controls for national security reasons. If Covid becomes endemic, it makes the case for every nation with the technological ability and resources to produce their own vaccines and PPE regardless of efficiency and trade.
COVID is endemic and every country should be able to make its own PPE. Vaccines are more complicated and its only the really big companies that have the resources to develop vaccines so fast. But yeah, especially for Taiwan, need to be able to produce vaccines in the future, which is one of the reason why domestic vaccine development so important now.
But with vaccines production is located in places with the ability to produce vaccines. A lot of countries arent able to or dont have a track record. South Korea is the vaccine manufacturing powerhouse in East/South East Asia and its not an economy of scale, rather it has technical expertise.
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Hmm let’s see, Oxford scientists try to figure out how to make a vaccine that is not expensive and does not require deep cold storage chains; they collaborate with AZ to set up production, which will be done in a nonprofit manner to get this product out there to as many people as possible around the world. Large scale factories set up in different sites, including in India (with a problematic but democratically elected government) and in Thailand (with a problematic military government). Neither contributed any resources into this research. Due to their own misgovernance, they then seize (in the case of India) or muse about seizing (in the case of Thailand) vaccines that are intended to help the world get out of this mess.
I hope this helps to explain why I am unimpressed by these actions and think they need to be called out and not just shrugged off.
Guy
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But I thought it was the right of those countries to ban exports in an emergency
I am not a trade lawyer. On this point, I simply don’t know.
Guy
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https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/25/issue/10
Breaks down the legality here, seems to be that WTO laws make it somewhat permissable:
The SPS Agreement enables members to take sanitary and phytosanitary measures necessary for the protection of human, animal or plant life or health, even if they restrict trade.[19] Similarly, the TBT agreement allows trade restriction measures, stating that “no country should be prevented from taking measures necessary to ensure the quality of its exports, or for the protection of human, animal or plant life or health.”[20]
The exceptions provided under Article XI(2)(a) GATT provide members with legal means to adopt export restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines and ingredients under specific conditions: they must be temporarily applied, only to foodstuffs and essential products, and be made in the context of preventing and relieving crucial shortages. So far, it seems that the Indian, EU, and US measures meet these conditions, given that there is a shortage in all of these countries where restrictions are temporary, and they are imposed to address the current shortage.
Good work to find that.
Look, I get the domestic political pressure to solve problems and try to get products to the locals. But these emergency measures are still a problem as it’s slowing down getting the world vaccinated. What’s the point of developing these nonprofit vaccines if local governments are just going to seize them? This will just drag things out . . .
Guy
I dont know what the answer is tbh. I understand the decison on India’s part when there are dead bodies in the street. There arent good answers to this problem.
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Do you pull these numbers you post out of a hat?
There’s no way that you can enrol enough people for a phase III trial, vaccinate them (even with one dose, let alone two), let antibodies develop, and allow enough time for a certain portion of them to contract the virus (to determine efficacy) in three weeks. It’s completely infeasible.
Read the damn article.
Which damn article?
You seem to have responded to @Icon’s post with links in English and Spanish. I don’t see anything to support your claim in the English one (or the Spanish one either, but my understanding isn’t great and the site won’t let the text be copied for Google translate).
This was in a discussion about phase III trials for the Taiwanese vaccines, no? How do you expect that “results will be available for analysis at three weeks”?
What part of “los test comenzarian en la tercera de semana [d]e julio” and “a las tres semanas se las tomaran muestras para ser analizadas” don’t you understand???
I’m losing patience with you gringos.
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What is described in the Spanish article isn’t a Phase III trial the way the rest of the world conducts them, it’s simply an immunebridging study being held in another country along with the one here in Taiwan. Very disappointing and now I’m a little peeved with Medigen because they are using language that is misleading.
You left out the key phrase in the article, “en principo” aka they hope to start the trial in the third week of July, not will.
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LOL
Well I guess if you can’t do a real Phase III, you can just create your own “Phase III” definition.
Embarrassing.
If they were really smart, they’d invent a term called “Phase 5”. That’ll impress people! And then TW can proclaim that it’s the first country to subject its vaccines to a Phase 5 standard.
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Sad, I really thought we were going to get some meaningful data, even if it was after the shots started in Taiwan.
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But starting shots in TW before there’s real world efficacy data would be totally unethical.
They could start with migrant workers. Since they’re not human beings (according to Taiwan’s legal system) it shouldn’t be a problem.
I thought the reason for them doing the new trial in Paraguay was to do, you know, an actual phase III trial, not just another immunobridging one.
If they’re just going to do the latter again but in another country, what on earth is the point?