The result of refusing Russian vaccine is that we now have a deficit. The demonization of Russia has deprived us of cure to Covid. And guess what, they cannot allow the idea that Russia may have the capacity to develop an effective cure. How can a country with economy the size of Italy (or was it Texas or Nigeria with snow?) have the capacity to develop and create anything? It does not fit into the propaganda narrative. And that’s why Lithuanians will be late adopters of whatever vaccines they eventually get hold of.
Insomniac Resurrected 
The western press gave Sputnik V a finger-wagging for ‘an early rollout’, by which it meant ‘a rollout before western vaccines could capture first place’. Comically, that same western press continues to remind potential customers that “Russia drew criticism from scientific circles last year when it approved Sputnik V for public use in August — before the crucial Phase 3 trials had been completed.”
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/health/russia-sputnik-v-phase-3-intl/index.html
Uhhhh…which western vaccines have completed critical Phase 3 trials? Moderna and Pfizer do not expect their Phase 3 trials to be complete for more than a year, and every COVID vaccine in use today was approved by governments for Emergency Use on the basis that trials are still in preliminary stages. We are mostly going on company assessments of the effectiveness of their products.
Sputnik V costs $10.00 a dose. It’s not clear if that is the selling price for a shot commercially, or what governments pay wholesale. Pfizer is twice as much at $20.00. Moderna really has no idea – somewhere between $10.00 and $50.00. Only Astra-Zeneca is cheaper at less than $4.00, but the Astra-Zeneca vaccine is not recommended for people over 65, and is restricted to people under 55 in some countries.
https://observer.com/2020/11/covid19-vaccine-price-pfizer-moderna-astrazeneca-oxford/
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Thank you very much for your insightful comment Mark. I really do not get the hype around vaccines. With the crisis all around us, can’t the journalist just shut up for once?
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The hype around vaccines is because with continuing ‘mutations’ and the sober judgment of ‘experts’ that COVID 19 will become endemic – which is to say, just one of those diseases like AIDS which is never cured altogether but remains a permanent low-level threat – the vaccine business will be a multiibillion dollar steady income for somebody. Everyone will sooner or later have to be vaccinated, like they used to do in school when I was a kid, for diseases I don’t even remember, and you will need an annual ‘booster’ shot like the flu shot is now, to keep your immunity ‘curren’t.
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