Germany tries to stop U.S. from luring away firm seeking coronavirus vaccine
reuters.com
reuters.com
If anything, the agreement should be conditional on vaccine being distributed to all funding countries, in order of some index of global health priority.
I'm not loving this, especially since things haven't even gotten as bad as they're likely to get.
On a smaller scale the TP hoarding is of a similar phenomenon. Scarcity, even when it isn't actually there, drives us all and thus we fulfill the scarcity we were afraid of.
But I don't want one solution. I want multiple well funded investigations of different vaccines, all in testing, so when a problem is found with one we still have alternatives.
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
According to [Die Welt], Trump was trying to get the Tübingen-based
CureVac company — which also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston — to
move its research wing to the United States and develop the vaccine “for the
U.S. only.” ... On Sunday afternoon, Germany’s Health Ministry told
Reuters that its spokesperson had been quoted correctly in the newspaper
article, confirming that Washington had attempted to take over the
biopharmaceutical company. Government sources indicated that Berlin
was now offering CureVac financial incentives to remain in Germany.> Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
>CureVac issued a statement on Sunday, in which it said: “The company rejects current rumors of an acquisition”.
Finally they give a quote from a US rep:
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: you also broke the guidelines with a personal attack here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22341594. If I had seen it at the time, I would have replied. We ban accounts that post comments like these, so please don't.
There are a lot of people, myself included, that don't like Donald Trump, but it is just factually untrue to say that the US is suppressing protests. It's more accurate to say most people are more focused on waking up in the morning, getting to work, and feeding their families than whatever shenanigans are happening around them.
Modern protest movements speak, associate, and organize through social media. Their tweets, blogs, protests, marches, and die-ins are the trumpets by which they call for reform and social justice. Government monitoring of activists’ protests – simply because these activists dissent and without any evidence of wrongdoing – threatens to discourage them from speaking, associating, and expressing as is their right under the First Amendment. Surveillance of #BlackLivesMatter protests also opens the door to racial profiling because the movement is Black-led."
https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/government-watching...
When China arrests doctors for posting on social media about a new disease or when they fire tear gas at people and beat them with clubs while they are protesting peacefully on the streets in Hong Kong, THAT is suppression. It's also a problem that we live in a massive world of surveillance enabled by commercial entities and exploited by governments, but that is not in itself a form of suppression.
If you were to consider this suppression, then technically we are all suppressed in our everyday lives from nearly any activity or statement which dissents from the norm. Meanwhile, over here in reality I'm well known among friends and coworkers as being a cranky guy who dissents about nearly everything for good reasons that most people are too busy with their lives to care about.
Hanlon's Razor feels like it's necessary to be invoked, or at least a corollary here. No shadowy conspiracy makes protest movements in the US ineffective, what makes them ineffective is that the average American is /just, barely/ comfortable enough in their daily life to not consider it worth it to join. Even when people are uncomfortable, they fear losing what little they have on a slim promise of change if they join a protest movement.
My statements are not to laud the state of the US or the actions of our government, just to defend the sanctity of meaning behind our words.
But I'd like for there to be public demonstrations, I was hoping somebody else would organize. I should have done something of course. Now it's too late, at least a little unsafe to assemble in large crowds.
Also, FWIW there is a considerable anti-Trump movement. You may remember he was recently impeached by the House of Representatives.
That said, Trump has been the most unpopular president in US history, and there is a huge resistance movement. The president has been impeached, and according to Generic Ballot polling, more people are willing to not vote for his party each day.
There is a resistance movement only on the coasts of the US, and in some other Urban, largely democrat area's get out of Urban US and there is no resistance, at most it is slight disagreement, but most people in rural America support Trump completely this includes many in the "Rust Belt" which democrats need to win a national election, support they have completely and utterly lost
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_tru...
I see this polling average for Trump - https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_tru... - and it seems to have a couple of extra points more than 538, but I do not see anything comparing Obama's polls to Trump's polls.
I do recall 538 adjusts polls slightly based on bias in the sampled population [0]. Perhaps RCP doesn't take into account bias in polls?
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
https://endpts.com/curevacs-ingmar-hoerr-tells-us-why-he-ret...
"On March 2, CureVac's then-CEO Daniel Menichella attended a meeting at the White House to discuss coronavirus vaccine development with Trump and members of his coronavirus taskforce.
On March 11, the company announced Menichella would be replaced by company founder Ingmar Hoerr, without giving a reason why."
Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-us-wrestle-over-coronaviru...
If the USA tries to screw over Germany like this, Germany could equally try screw over the USA - and they're the one with the vaccine company.
When the dust settles, I think Europe may end up reconsidering who to side with.
We love our freedom and our ideals but our execution sucks and it has nothing to do with China being authoritarian at this point.
Taiwan is a democracy and they handled it just fine.
No, we have elected clowns who tell us sweet lies we want to hear rather than the information we need to adapt to a changing world and now we have the worst aspects of both systems. Shit, in the US the local officials wanted to do the right thing while the dear leader screwed around blocking them, dismissed the scientists and acting uncontrolled and unchecked supported by his blindly loyal party officials and supported by his quasi-state-TV channel - that's like reverse China, the stupid version. We are really not in any position to give lectures right now.
So let's stop shouting China is bad reflexively whenever our own faults are kicking us in the ass and actually demonstrate that our system is better - because right now, it is not - and a lot more people are about to die because of it.
And right next there is a whole host of other risks queued up that will hit us in the same way- antibiotics resistance, resource exhaustion, pensions, climate change, etc. If this was the preview of how we will adapt to these challenges - ignoring them and letting them wash over us to not inconvenience the existing economy - I think China has a much better chance of adapting right now than we have.
We are lucky in a way to get this virus as a reality check and not something worse... but even this will leave millions dead, many unnecessary due to lack of preparation during the time paid for with the lives of many people in Wuhan and failure to heed science.
Especially in the places that have had the most spectacular demonstrations of this recently; the UK and the USA. It's tragic, but as you said, this is a mild wakeup call. Hope it's heeded, but I'm not too optimistic.
Yes, China is doing terrible things – and also many good things. So is the US.
Of course as citizens of the western world it's easier to connect with western governments, weigh more heavily against the atrocities of the others and brush over our own systems shortcomings.
Lest we forget it is impossible to be objective.
The us doesn't do that kind of thing (trump would no doubt like to do that, with his talk of making cv numbers an official secret). China was very effective stopping the virus apparently, after screwing it up at the start. They just kidnapped a critical billionaire.
Case study: https://mothership.sg/2019/12/news-china-protests-wenlou-hua... People in Guangdong province -- closely Hong Kong -- protested against the building of a crematorium. They also complained that the government didn't consult them before proceeding with the plans. Some even rioted, similarly to Hong Kongers. Did the government put them in jail forever? Nope: peaceful protesters were unharmed, rioters got jailed but were released later and forgiven. The government scrapped the plans and gave citizens what they wanted.
How is this possible in an authoritarian country? There is only one answer: your image of what China is, is wrong.
There is a core of truth of all the claims about authoritarianism and human rights abuse, but it's just that: a core. That core has been exaggerated beyond all reason.
Like someone else posted: china has good aspects and bad aspects. Just like the US. Just like other countries. Time to stop viewing it as a caricature and start treating it for what it really is.
As for instantly closing the borders: if you did that everytime a new virus popped up then you'd be closing the borders twice a year.
"hundreds of billions of dollars"
Germany received $14B (in 2020 $). Most of the money was loans and Germany made the last debt payment in 1971.
The Marshall plan had three goals: 1.) Start the US peace time economy and help transition companies from wartime production to consumer goods 2.) Prevent communist influence in Europe by preventing starving Europeans 3.) Open European markets to US companies by reducing barriers and regulations.
"The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods from the United States." --Wikipedia
"Its role in the rapid recovery has been debated. The Marshall Plan's accounting reflects that aid accounted for about 3% of the combined national income of the recipient countries between 1948 and 1951, which means an increase in GDP growth of less than half a percent." --Wikipedia
While the USA might sometimes to present it as a selfless act it wasn't selfless at all. It was what allowed them to become the most powerful country in the word, at least for a view years.
Lastly Trump didn't just want to buy right on the potential vaccines he wanted to get exclusive rights. It was never even a question before that if the EU finds a vaccine then the USA will get it, too. But now he did an action which completely destroy the trust between the EU and the USA when it comes to fighting this pandemic together.
Given the threat posed by the Corona virus this is exactly what must happen.
So, no not even a license is required.
The US have a massive army of chickens ready to produce eggs which are used to produce vaccines in the order of millions per month. They just need the vaccine and they can produce it.
I hope that Europe are in the same situation.
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
> Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
>CureVac issued a statement on Sunday, in which it said: “The company rejects current rumors of an acquisition”.
Finally they give a quote from a US rep:
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
Beyond that they can just invoke national emergency and take control if it was needed.
The company works with Paul Ehrlich institute which means tax payer subsidies and ironclad contracts and regulation.
This isn't Deutsche Bank paying for Trumps Russian deals - German medical science is very well integrated and protected.
Doesn't matter anyways since it was reported a few minutes ago, that the vaccine patent is not for sale to the US once available.
*I blend in really well - until I open my mouth and Texas-accented German comes out.
In recent years (beginning with Bush II, I'd say), we've felt much colder towards America the country, but I don't see or hear much dislike for Americans.
It certainly helps that the Americans we come into contact here are mostly what counts as liberal in America.
And those who aren't (I was certainly surprised to find out that my friend and colleague from Connecticut was a Republican with Tea Party sympathies) are courteous without fail and don't run around telling us how they feel about free speech or gun control in Germany.
Unlike your Ambassador, I might add…
US-EU ties goes far back into the 20th century. Last 4 years has been tough. Apologies, but I hope people know that this is not what the city dwellers and liberal population of America thinks.
"Walldorf, 15. März 2020 – Die dievini Hopp BioTech holding GmbH & Co. KG, eine Beteiligungsgesellschaft von SAP-Mitgründer Dietmar Hopp mit Investitionsschwerpunkt in innovative Biotechnologieunternehmen, nimmt Stellung zu Presseberichten über eine vermeintliche exklusive Vergabe eines in der Entwicklung befindlichen Impfstoffs von CureVac gegen das Corona-Virus. dievini ist seit 2005 an der CureVac AG, Tübingen, beteiligt an der sie über 80% der Anteile hält. Zweitgrößter Aktionär ist die Bill-und-Melinda-Gates-Stiftung, die gemeinsam mit CureVac Impfstoffe gegen eine Reihe von Infektionserkrankungen entwickelt.
„Seit wir 2005 dievini gründeten, bin ich davon überzeugt, dass das Verstehen molekularer Zusammenhänge Diagnose und Therapie auch schwerster Erkrankungen für Patienten weltweit transformativ verbessern wird“, sagt Dietmar Hopp. „Dem Ziel, alle Menschen vor Infektionen zu schützen und Patienten weltweit besser therapieren und im besten Fall heilen zu können, bin ich ebenso verpflichtet, wie meiner Absicht, nachhaltige innovative Infrastruktur und Arbeitsplätze in Deutschland zu schaffen. Wenn es uns hoffentlich bald gelingt, einen wirksamen Impfstoff gegen das Corona-Virus zu entwickeln, soll dieser Menschen nicht nur regional sondern solidarisch auf der ganzen Welt erreichen, schützen und helfen können. Ich wäre froh, wenn dies durch meine langjährigen Investitionen aus Deutschland heraus erfolgen würde.“
----
The most important point is the last sentence: If we are sucessful finding a vaccine, it shouldnt be available only regionally but for all people worldwide.
Btw, it's best to send these concerns to hn@ycombinator.com. I only saw this by accident.
This has been the utopia of the tech nerd mentality for over 30 years since I first started using UseNet. The reality is, this kind "reasoned and fact-based" discussion model (a) doesn't really exist when there are subjective components or unknowably complexities, but worse (b) it is actually used to suppress discussion! The number of times I've observed discussion with people using "logic" to gatekeep is uncountable.
The fact of the matter is: some topics are messy and you can't just throw around "logic" and make it go away. Well, you can sequester yourself, but good luck with that.
It might be that people genuinely dislike discussion of politics on here even on a thread that is about politics or that Trump's supporters here are more likely to have downvote buttons.
Trump offered around (only?) 1B € for the exclusive development of the vaccine.
Apprerently 80% of the company is held by the SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp. I would guess that his incentive to accept sth like this is quite slim.
Long story short, I would not expect him to be convinced by anything monetary at this point in his life. He's a class act and would probably be embarrassed to be helping Trump.
He's also much deserving of the success he's having with this venture here, to my understanding he kept many biotech firms alive when the going got though.
03.03 CureVac CEO meets Trump [0]
03.11 CureVac removes the CEO [1]
03.15 CureVac denies the american buyout news [2]
[0] https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-ceo-daniel-menichella-b...
[1] https://www.curevac.com/news/company-founder-ingmar-hoerr-su...
[2] https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...
> Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."
The assumption is the virus will naturally spread, so controlling which country gets or doesn’t get the vaccine is a form of an indirect biological warfare.
There is already efforts to block European countries from sending medicine to Iran as an example [0].
What we should be thinking about is at what point are we going too far with these strong-arming tactics. Outside of humanitarian arguments, there is the possibility that leaving the virus unchecked, it will ultimately find its way to our shores.
[0] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/05/iran-coronavirus-medicin...
I'm sick with something viral at the moment, and I hope to do my part by social distancing, disinfecting public surfaces I'm touching, and working pretty much exclusively from home. Flatten the curve, and let those who truly need it take the ICU beds and hospital spaces. One way or another, it'll be over before we know it :)
When we must cooperate with others, we must look for common principles, underlying foundation of a country. China can become a super power bully around other countries into a dystopian world. Is that what we want in Germany? German companies having to apologize to the CCP for offending them?
My theory around the election of Trump through a number of incidents that lead up to it - Russian objectives to dismantle US-EU, Chinese objectives to bankcrupt US by paying off their executives to move the factories to China, Democrats vs Republicans polarization and Trump dropping the American credibility. It is sad. Remember, Trump didn't win popular vote. When middle America is bankrupt, there is no food on the table, drug use is through the roof - they will want some change in Washington, Trump gets elected. I don't want my kids to grow up to a world where democracy is dying, western countries are infighting and there is an increasing risk of complete and utter lack of freedom, loss of privacy and obsolence of liberty.
What a sad world to be in. China can be amazing super power if it suddenly got rid of CCP and had an open minded democracy, inspiring and building a model of how other nations can follow. Instead, we are seeing a regression and nationalism rising around the world. Same thing in India.
The current administration is continuing to try to solve this problem without turning to global co-operation. If the vaccine is developed in Germany, or the UK or China, the U.S. would then need to license this technology, and it would reveal that the U.S does in fact need the world, and that global co-operation is, at the very least, needed in some situations. It would lose face. If on the other hand, the administration can claim "Look! We developed the vaccine here in the U.S. .. I told you we didn't need those other guys. We will take care of Americans first, and then we will help the others." then it would validate the "America first" narrative.
This doesn't bode well, if the US government thinks it can spend its way into getting the vaccine before everyone else.
"Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."" https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...
These behaviors are not new. The attitude the current American administration has towards the idea of global governance is an old attitude, and will prevent cooperation. This will not be the last time you see something similar in the news, and there will be no change unless the administration fundamentally changes its beliefs (read: the administration changes).
> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
The Welt am Sonntag report says "US-Präsident Donald Trump versucht offenbar, deutsche Wissenschaftler, die an einem potenziellen Corona-Impfstoff arbeiten, mit hohen finanziellen Zuwendungen nach Amerika zu locken beziehungsweise das Medikament exklusiv für sein Land zu sichern." which Google Translate assures me means "US President Donald Trump apparently tries to lure German scientists working on a potential corona vaccine to America with high financial donations or to secure the drug exclusively for his country."
And the German health ministry confirmed the Welt story to Reuters.
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article206555143/Corona-USA-w...
The same rumors are going around about China buying US companies.
This kind of mob-raising by the media happens in every pandemic, and it does result in people being killed. Knock this shit off until the facts are in.
Why is this relevant?
> “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said
That doesn’t sound like they’re confirming exclusive access. In fact, the quote sounds like they’re explicitly going out of their way to not say that.
Let's say we get a working vaccine and have initial production of 50k doses per week, ramping up. How do you allocate those around the world? 50k per week is enough to get healthcare workers and start firebreaks in the US, but not much of an impact worldwide.
> Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...
The company is tied to a national research and regulatory institute (Paul Erlich) - they can nationalise it in an instant.
2020 was impossible but guess what, we're uselessly going back for 2023/2024 https://i.imgur.com/eWLps8L.jpg
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's goal was to get everyone to dislike the US, out of some misguided sense that "if you're good, everyone hates you, therefore if you make everyone hate you that means you're good".
Is he seriously trying to profiteer off the pandemic?
https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...
[1] There are other, way dumber possible reasons but I guess I'm trying to be charitable. He might not be able to wrap his head around positive-sum problems in general, or he might think that the US gains some advantage from all its trading partners having their economies destroyed.
Why?
so yeah... I would put this in the "very probably true bin"
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to...
> “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said, confirming a quote in the newspaper.
> “In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,” she added.
It's not like you can keep a plan like that secret, either.
There will be production shortages/delays. This would mean Americans would get vaccines first.
No, kleptocracy is the administatin’s primary guiding principle. “America First” is one of the main propaganda tactics they use to sell their kleptocracy to the masses, not a guiding principle.
Is there a way, to independently check validity of Reuter's claims?
In the view as extraordinary claims, require 'extraordinary evidence'
My take on reuters, bbc, wash post, new york times ,vox, la times, ars technica is, that they consider Trump and his administration as their 'sworn enemy'.
It is not unusual, therefore, for an adversary such as Reuters to engage in what's called 'Atrocity propaganda' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda
This has been an effective tactics of information warfare.
against US President and his administration.
But I was correct, in this instance - Reuters lied. https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/03/curevac-tweet.png
Bad actors can thrive on unbounded benefit of the doubt. At some point, they have to go bankrupt. Trump is well beyond that point.
The part that's making so many commenters here shut their brains off:
> Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
The quote above is manipulating you into believing that the USA is attepmting to prevent Germans from getting that vaccine. THAT'S the part that is completely not real.
EDIT: Some of the questions you want to ask when you see an article quote like this:
- Who is this unnamed source, exactly?
- Is the article accurately representing what they said?
- In particular: does it accurately represent their intended meaning, in context?
- Does that person speak for the German government? Or is this one government employee's opinion?
- If a German company moves its research labs into the USA, but remains a German company - like the article says - wouldn't that make it impossible for them to hide the secret formula for a vaccine?
- Why would the USA (or any country) even try to keep a vaccine formula secret, in the face of a global pandemic like this? If you think about it, is that comic-book-villain scenario even plausible?
What's the reading of "only for X" that doesn't equal "not for Y"?
However in these times it's important that own citizens are prio 1. Trump cares for Americans and America has hardly ever let it's Western European allies down.
From my perspective it's in good hands in the U.S. and I trust anything that comes out of it will also benefit the rest of the world eventually.
You have to be a troll or have a very strange agenda, seriously.
i.e. the bored intern with nothing better to do than make stuff up. Sprinkle in some quotes from actual high ranking officials on adjacent topics, and you can almost make it feel like it's the same conversation. Hurray journalism.
I suppose the apology you would expect according to your tone in case of misinformation and wrong speculation is not one you would give yourself. Hurray ...
> “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said, confirming a quote in the newspaper.
> “In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,” she added.
All the extreme statements are attributed to unnamed sources. Sadly you need to read news articles carefully these days.
As it happened with other 2nd rounds of a pandemia in history.
Now If we get to discover something and the deployment can be only done to X% of the population who do we save? Our own country or the neighbors?...
Italy was asking to Europe for medical supply and nobody responded, every single country is gonna play egoistic in this topic and don't expect anyone to give thousands of millions in missed workforce to save the older in neighbor countries. Cold reality.