Thread by @astroehlein

Vaccines "outpaced by variants", says World Health Organization.

#Delta now in 98 countries: theguardian.com/society/2021/j…

French minister fears "fourth wave": euobserver.com/tickers/152340

➡️ We are not vaccinating people fast enough globally.

Governments are again arguing over scarce vaccines: who should get the doses - children here or older people there?

But we could tackle vaccine scarcity itself.

The world could make more vaccines faster.

Outrageously, the EU & a few other rich governments are blocking it.

From the beginning, the EU has been blocking & delaying wider vaccine production globally by obstructing the #TRIPSwaiver, a proposal to temporarily waive some intellectual property (IP) rules on vaccines & other health products.

The vast majority of countries in the world, medical experts and public health groups have been telling the EU that this is the wrong policy.

The world needs to be producing more vaccine doses as quickly as possible, and that means allowing more production facilities globally.

The EU (and UK, Norway & Switzerland) are helping to throttle vaccine production by keeping it in the hands of a few pharmaceutical companies.

Those firms will set production levels to what suits them best - that is, whatever maximises their profits - not what humanity needs.

The European Commission (driven by Germany in this) continues to ignore all the health experts & even other EU member state governments, like France & Poland, as well as the European Parliament, all of whom are now behind vaccine patent waivers.
politico.eu/article/europe…

EU leaders continue to deliver disinformation and spout outright lies to defend their deadly policy, using arguments that have been debunked repeatedly:

https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/1400352366134796295

Most of the EU leaders' lies & debunked arguments come straight from the pharmaceutical industry - that is, from those who have a direct financial interest in maintaining control of vaccine production.

They won't even listen to anyone else.
corporateeurope.org/en/2021/05/com…

Humanity needs more vaccine doses produced more quickly to get ahead of emerging variants.

We need to expand production. We need a glut of vaccines.

Monopoly producers would never aim to create a glut of their product because that would lower prices.

The pharma companies understand this very well.

They know that if they lose control of production, their profits will dip.

That's why they spend so much time & money lobbying the EU & others.

The pharma companies strategy toward the pandemic is clear. They make no secret of it.

They are "betting" on global pandemic as a LONG-TERM business opportunity.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

And as long as pharma companies control vaccine production, they can maintain the scarcity of doses that both keeps prices high & gives more time for new variants to emerge.

➡️➡️ The pharma companies' EU-approved business model is a merry-go-round of death.

We will only get off this merry-go-round of death when vaccine production outpaces the emergence of new variants.

The EU (& UK, Norway, Switzerland) have to stop blocking & delaying the #TRIPSwaiver at the World Trade Organization.

The EU (& UK, Norway, Switzerland) need to start prioritising ENDING the pandemic, rather than keeping it going to benefit pharma companies.

💥 We need to stop arguing over scarce vaccines and start producing enough doses for everyone.

hrw.org/news/2021/05/2…
#PeoplesVaccine