Cooperation on COVID Vaccines? 13/12/20

We hear a lot about 3 COVID vaccines; the Pfizer one being rolled out in the UK last week and in the US from tomorrow, the Oxford Astra-Zeneca one that is imminent, cheaper and has less problems with refrigeration, and the Moderna one, which is US based and does not yet seem to have a launch date.

There are two other vaccines in the news, the Russian Sputnik V one being rolled out there and in Eastern Europe, and the Chinese Sinopharm one that is going into Indonesia, India and elsewhere.  But it seems that no one is considering bringing these two into the Western world.  We might ask, ‘Why not?’

Is it racist?  Do we think their scientists are no good and would fake the results?   Are we simply in the thrall of Western pharmaceutical companies with captive regulators?  Perish the thought, would their vaccines be cheaper?  China has 1.3 billion people to protect and have goes to a lot of trouble to do so.  They had scientists working with the US until the fuss started.  They had a head start in the vaccine race.  If the vaccine did not work they would have wasted a lot of time and effort vaccinating their own country and would suffer a huge loss of face.  It seems unlikely that their vaccine does not work.  So again, why no evaluation here?  If Australia asked the Chinese to give us the data on their vaccine to evaluate it for licence here, it would be a nice peace gesture in the needless spat that was created when Morrison accused the Chinese of hiding the origins of the COVID epidemic.

It seems that some scientists in Britain and Russia have suggested cooperation between the Oxford and the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. This story is from RT- Russia Today. Will this actually happen?

www.rt.com/russia/509340-astrazeneca-sputnikv-vaccine-collaboration/