Gentlemen, the hole is due to the fact that no company has the large scale productive capacity for the newly discovered COVID-19 vaccine.
Ordering earlier and paying more would just have shifted distribution around, and would not have made more doses available. Every vaccination done in the US or the UK means one less vaccine dose for Europe.
And that is not "ducking responsibility", it is basic logic - as one cannot fit 10 pegs in 9 holes, one cannot vaccinate 10 people with 9 doses.
Your model seems to assume a fixed production capacity? It would seem plausible that if you paid an extra billion or two, companies could find a way to scale up production faster.
Well the fact that the companies own the stuff that was researched with tax payer money, which then tax payer money must buy again also doesn't help to scale. As there is no real market but just an oligopol of producers. If the formulas would be public domain, the producers can compete who is fastest and there would be much more and they still earn good money...
The Russian scientists have first discussed Sputnik V with EMA (EU's medicine agency) 5 days ago: https://www.msn.com/en-xl/europe/top-stories/russia-files-sp... ; Hungary, which is part of the EU, has already given the vaccine emergency authorization. However, vaccination in Hungary is lagging behind its neighbors Austria and Romania due low levels of trust (in the Russian vaccine) and general antivaxx sentiment. The Chinese have not discussed their vaccines or filed for marketing authorisation in the EU.
Here in Moscow russian citizens can get the vaccine absolutely free in about of 100 authorized medical partners. I've personally got first dose of Sputnik V yesterday without any problems or shortages.
Non-sequitur, but true: this is a political hatchet job from delivered by a center-left newspaper to a center-right politician. The key to this crisis and article can be found in the middle of the article:
"...von der Leyen's press department has been energetic in its defense of the Commissions actions. After all, the EU has secured rights to 2.3 billion doses of vaccine, they have pointed out, with 760 million of them from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna.
But what use is that when the availability of the vaccine will remain so limited for the foreseeable future? When the producers are unable to deliver what they have agreed to – or can only deliver much later?"
Von der Leyen deserves all the hatchet jobs she can get... She is the child of a political dynasty and hasn't done anything well for citizens in her life.
As a French I'm still extremely bitter about the insane manoeuvering by the EPP to put her in place. Then again, finding anyone even remotely competent in the EPP is probably quite hard.
It's not a hatchet job. The EU's handling of the vaccine has turned into an incredible disaster. Given the stakes, and the magnitude of the disaster, it's only natural the architect of that disaster get evaluated critically.
It is both. And especially the Spiegel has an issue with her. Also has a history of pushing agendas.
Personally, I blame part of the availability issues, caused by the Pfizer plant "shutdown" in Belgium, on that hatchet job. The Spiegel was among the first to use the unsatisfactory vaccine availability against von der Leyen. Fair enough, but as solution they called for increased ordering. Pressure built, frustration kicked in and then every news outlet demanded the same thing. Local politicians supported that narrative, they avoided discussions about their own fuck ups. Then the EU ordered more, demand exceeded capacity, and Pfizer reworks its plant. That resulted in even worse short term availability issues. So great job, I guess.
I find this improbable. Kessler syndrome could well make it impossible to keep a satellite in orbit at certain altitudes. However it is unlikely to create a “shell” that prevents space flight entirely. Kessler in LEO would be cleared fairly quickly (a generation or less) and at higher orbits the debris would be less dense due to the volume of orbital space it covered, which expands at the square of altitude. If we were really determined to get off the planet, I don’t think it would stop us.
Question 2: This is better left unanswered. We've been building superhuman AIs for at least 300 years which are exploiting reality to their advantage and have started out-competing humans for resources (including by changing laws in their favour). These things we've been building are called corporations, and they're certainly smarter than any individual, richer than any human can become and are now working hard to figure out how their humans can be replaced by more reliable components.
Ordering earlier and paying more would just have shifted distribution around, and would not have made more doses available. Every vaccination done in the US or the UK means one less vaccine dose for Europe.
And that is not "ducking responsibility", it is basic logic - as one cannot fit 10 pegs in 9 holes, one cannot vaccinate 10 people with 9 doses.