> In the face of global inequities, it’s not as simple as states donating unused vaccines. The doses already distributed to states can’t be repurposed internationally because of bureaucratic and safety concerns around storing the vaccines correctly.
This is alongside a global crisis for shipping anything using cargo ships
First of all, vaccines aren't delivered internationally by ship, they are delivered by air cargo. Often by militaries, which will do it promptly at a moment's notice.
Second of all, "bureaucratic and safety concerns" is code for "we don't want to bother". Those are all things that can be worked around and have indeed been by other countries that had excess doses.
Or, hear me out, we could make sure other countries get doses straight from production sources instead of getting the just-about-to-expire doses left over from the US.
You also don't "overnight them to remote areas". You drop them off at the airport, then the other country either sends their military aviation or charters another countries cargos to pick them up.
Ok, that's fair. But the rest of your comments in this discussion have been about how the waste itself is the result of a lie and that, somehow, we can collect already distributed and started vials quickly enough to fly them to other countries and, somehow, distribute quickly enough within them for it to be worthwhile and not just a hurried rush to find out that people are getting little better than a placebo.
If you'd read my second paragraph, I suggest exactly what you did: Make sure countries get doses from the sources instead of fretting about waste that, itself, is useless because there is no logistical scheme in place or even reasonably achievable that can collect and redistribute these doses to make them useful.
EDIT: Now I'm glad I quoted you as you've edited your comment after my initial reply.
> You also don't "overnight them to remote areas". You drop them off at the airport, then the other country either sends their military aviation or charters another countries cargos to pick them up.
Practically speaking, once the vials are started the countdown begins. The only reasonable way to use the started vials in countries on other continents and distribute to their remote communities is to ship it as fast as possible, which means overnighting. You can't collect them and wait a week to ship them and then a week or more to get them distributed within the countries and expect a useful vaccine dose to be delivered.
Also, you've misquoted me. I did not say "overnight them to remote areas" as you suggest. I said "overnight those to airports in other countries". Those are two very different statements. Don't make fake quotes in your replies, it's dishonest.
You'll be surprised but generally plane flights take less than a week.
Ok so 224k wasted doses in Louisiana over around 6 months, 180 days. That's not even 2k doses per day, let's round up. There are probably more than 100 vaccination locations around Louisiana, so we're talking about no more than 20 doses per location being wasted (on average). Somehow, we're expected to totally reverse the distribution system every single night to collect at most 2k doses to take to an international airport and have, what, the other countries pay to have them shipped ASAP to their country. Let's say only 100 countries are sending aircraft, that's 20 doses that they're trying to get back to their people each day from Louisiana.
That's a totally reasonable approach, versus, say, getting them the initial batches instead.
> You'll be surprised but generally plane flights take less than a week.
Yes, but for 20 doses a day I doubt most countries would send or contract aircraft from Louisiana.
Yes, absolutely it's bad they're throwing it out. No debate there. But it's not like they can ship it somewhere else without it costing more than the food itself.
The solution is better understanding of who needs what and try to fill them as close as you can without going over too much. That will optimize usage of a product.
Other countries have done it. The US won't. It's clearly not anywhere close.
There is also no reason to fly to these locations. There is already the logistic capacity to ship in the proper conditions between these locations and a few central hubs. It just has to be run in reverse. It hasn't been done for hundreds of locations because few countries are as big as the US, but it has been done on a smaller scale by less capable actors.
You can't just duplicate existing routes. The logistics to collect unused vaccines from endpoints (on an insanely tight clock), would be enormously complex. We'd be setting that up on a nationwide scale, in the middle of a worldwide transportation shortage.
Further increasing exportable vaccine production would seem to be a more attainable goal.
You essentially have to "undo" that chain faster than the product will go bad to a place it will be utilized in time.
Otherwise you'd have to travel to the majority of pharmacies all around the US and some how get that all to the airport.
And trucks/delivery drivers are very very expensive at scale.
I imagine the effectiveness of anti-vax propaganda is tough to incorporate into distribution forecasts.
What if, for example, food that would spoil in a couple more days were simply moved to a "free" section of the grocery store? No need for complex shipping or logistics costs, simply ask the stocker to move from one aisle to another. Why don't grocery stores do that, if they're concerned about "reducing waste"?
The article is much more levelheaded and explains why fairly well, so it's by definition clickbait IMO.
Not saying they're not factual (mostly they are), just that they have editorial bias that serves the readership while also having to state facts (some of them are pro-US).
Edit: @simonh - Agreed, Right wing media is completely off the rails, but not sure we need to compare here. I wasn't advocating it.
Look, I'm a serial conservative voting Brit. I'm no leftie, but OMG Fox News and the Daily Mail take the biscuit. In the unlikely event I ever were to vote left, one of those is far more likely to push me over the edge than the Guardian.
The headline is actually correct, and the nuance in the article only serves to explain but on the balance does not justify the US throwing out doses. This is made a lot more likely by the fact that the US is the only country that refuses to export vaccines and by the fact that other countries have exported unused doses.
The alt to reporting issues is "good news" reporting. We tried it for years and it was mostly vapid milquetoast. I was glad to see it go. I think follow-up stories to earlier issues works tho. Some of those will be positive.
note: The modern form of GNR is where the press parrots PR by biz/gov/leo - usually without any analysis.
Positive facts allow us to double down on what works. Negative facts allow us to inspect what went wrong.
It's awesome that a pumpkin patch 2 counties away raised $52.40 but it doesn't serve me as well as learning my legislator passed laws that harm me - in trade for fat campaign donations.
So about 10% of the loss was due to expiration, and that could have happened pretty far downstream, not in some massive central warehouse where someone could have sent a pallet of 20000 shots out.