Vaccine war begins: Western countries pour money into drug companies

More than 15.43 million cases and 630,000 deaths have been confirmed globally as of 8:35 am Beijing time.
The United States is far ahead with more than 4 million cumulative confirmed cases, while European countries are still reeling from the outbreak.
In order to get out of the shadow of coVID-19 as soon as possible, some countries have taken drastic measures to increase their prevention and control efforts.
Western countries are pouring money into drug companies.
The U.S. government directly announced it would pay $1.95 billion for 100 million doses of the vaccine needed to vaccinate 50 million people.
Smaller countries with less generous funds will be left to stare at them.

At present novel Coronavirus is still the biggest threat to human safety, and it can only take passive defensive measures in the face of virus.
Wearing masks and reducing unnecessary trips may help slow the spread of the disease, but it is not a long-term solution. People cannot live with masks all the time.
Therefore, the research and development of coVID-19 vaccine has become the focus of the scientific, technological and health battle in every country in the world in 2020.
Western countries, which now have deep pockets, have poured money into drug companies.
The U.S. government has announced it will spend $1.95 billion to buy 100 million doses of vaccine to vaccinate 50 million people in the future.
The UK has ordered 100m doses from Oxford University and Astrazeneca, and as many as 90m more from Europe and America to be on the safe side.
The Canadian government has gone even further by not only investing heavily in vaccines, but also directly procuring 37 million syringes to facilitate future mass vaccinations.

At present, countries have paid unprecedented attention to the development of coVID-19 vaccine.
Foreign media have called the research and development of vaccines “a war without smoke” or “The First World War against the epidemic”, and some even shouted the slogan “whoever gets the vaccine, gets the world”.
It’s an exaggeration, but it’s enough to show how much the world CARES about vaccine development.

However, the research and development of vaccine has not been smooth sailing. According to a report by the Global Times on July 22, a truck carrying samples from novel Coronavirus was hijacked by unknown criminals in South Africa on the evening of July 20 local time.
South African police have cordoned off the surrounding area and are investigating.
People are also asked to contact local government officials if they find items that may contain virus samples.
But so far, the police have not recovered the virus samples.
More importantly, the samples are highly contagious, so if criminals accidentally break them, the damage could be immeasurable.
This shows that the development of the vaccine is not smooth, in addition to the successful development of vaccine distribution, is also very critical.
Big countries, with their financial, technological and positional advantages, have an absolute advantage in the distribution of vaccines, whereas smaller countries may have no choice but to stare them down.

At a normal development schedule, a vaccine is at least 10-15 years from development to market.
However, in view of the unprecedented destruction caused by the novel Coronavirus, countries all over the world began to pour funds into the research and development of vaccine at no cost, and the research and development of vaccine also became a part of political work.
In particular, U.S. President Donald Trump, who has fared poorly in the fight against the pandemic, has declared that the United States is capable of completing research and development of a vaccine by the end of 2020.