05-15-2021, 12:49 AM
(05-10-2021, 02:54 PM)Bear Wrote: If only wealthy people in powerful countries are capable of developing mRNA vaccines, you can still damn well bet that they'll be developing them, immediately, in response to any pandemic. And as long as they fear visitors bringing that disease into their nation, and as long as they can score major diplomacy points by doing so, they will be exporting it, and exporting the power to make it, to everybody else just as fast as they can. In fact, as we are doing right now, starting with Biden's release of the IP.
So, yeah, it won't be a response to every epidemic. If something doesn't threaten a set of people including powerful people in wealthy countries, it may get neglected. But an actual pandemic? We're going to be stomping on those from now on.
I decided to avoid naming names, but there were some famous politicians and billionaires downplaying the pandemic, and I'm not clear on what their motive for that was, and whether they had the same motive. I don't want to start any unpleasantness on this board. But that seems like a counterexample to wealthy people all wanting to develop a vaccine.