Quote of the Day

It bothers me that poor people around the world have not yet even received one dose of the vaccine, and I am going to get my third, therefore I will not get vaccinated with the third dose.

  -- Deputy Director of Shaarei Tzedek Hospital, Don Turner

I get the feeling, but he is not helping anybody by not taking the third dose. The State of Israel is not going to send his unused third dose to Australia or Canada or Africa for poor unvaccinated people - it will just go to somebody else in Israel or get wasted and expire at some point. In the meantime, one of the leaders of a major hospital will not have his booster and might end up being in a risky situation. 

Turner does believe that "rich" countries acquiring vaccines should condition that on an equal share of vaccines being sent to poor countries. That is a fair argument and worthy of discussion. I don't see it as realistic, but it is at least worth discussing. I am not sure why a private company, eg Pfizer or Moderna, would accept such a condition from any country demanding it - they sell vaccines, they don't give them away. if Israel or the USA or any other country wants to purchase vaccines and have them shipped as a humanitarian gesture to Haiti, to Tunisia, to the Palestinian Territories, to Congo or to wherever, that is the business of each country alone. Perhaps it should be an effort of the United Nations.

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