Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "China's Vaccine Diplomacy" video.

  1. A bit presumptuous and myopic, but sure, let´s take it as a particular point of view. For those who are open minded and are not completely blinded by prejudice I´ll just focus on the vaccination part and put things in contrast. Just to be clear, not that I think there is no justification to have a bit of bias against China... long standing anti human rights position of the CCP is more than enough for people to be prejudiced against actions from chinese government, but at the same time, you can´t do that at the cost of not being critical of western countries too, or your own government. Brazil is getting vaccines from whetever it can because it just drastically jumped to worst affected country, vaccination is extremely low here, and the public health system already collapsed. And it´s NOT thanks to our president, it´s thanks to governors and mayors who joined forces with labs, medics and scientists running the show due to the total absence of the federal government. If it depended solely on Bolsonaro, we´d have no chinese vaccine, and we´d be even further more fcked than we already are. Most of the country has no ICU beds available anymore, some cities have lines of hundreds of people waiting for a spot and dying while waiting for it, and we´re getting close to running out of even medication and equipment for putting people under mechanical breathing, running out of medical grade oxygen, anesthesics, everything... no country has faced such an extreme collapse just yet, and things are only getting worse. So, it´s not only chinese vaccines really... it´s vaccines from whoever wants to give us. Brazil has bought russian vaccines too, european vaccines, labs are trying to make deals with US universities.... it´s just waiting for local regulatory agency to approve it to handle it out. Our regulatory agency is bureaucratic like most of other governmental bodies, so it takes time to pass through, but we´re basically accepting everything from anyone. This is just how desperate we are. We trailed second place during the entire pandemic behind the US, but we currently surpassed the US not only because the US is getting better due to a better vaccination campaign, but because we got several times worse due to people just not caring anymore, sluggish vaccinataion campaign, and general mismanagement, corruption. Just as a dramatic point of comparison - more brazilians are dying in a day than people have died on 9/11, and numbers are still growing. mRNA might be the newer tech and "better" in some points, but not only at this point this really doesn´t matter much (what matters is volume and speed), but also, it´s really not that significantly better to make any difference right now. Being marginally better is not a point of consideration at this point. In fact, if aything, and I´m not 100% sure on this people might confirm it or not for me, aren´t mRNA vaccines the ones that requires ultra cold storage? If so, they are very much worse for our particular case. Brazil is a huge country with tons of people living in small poorly equipped cities. We barely have freezers in several cities, let alone specialized storage space to keep vaccines at -20C. Clarifying comment was already posted saying that results in effectiveness between vaccines don´t really compare, but I still don´t think this makes the video content valid or fair. A good portion of the video makes it sound like mRNA is so much better that alternatives shouldn´t be considered, which is just not the case. What made Sinovac a significant vaccine in Brazil wasn´t even the fact that China is sending it to us... it´s the fact that due to vaccine trials happening partially here, the farma entered a deal with local labs to enable production locally. This is what Brazil really needed, because we don´t have that much money to import everything, and our population is big and spread out enough that we need to make things locally for a vaccination campaign to be effective. Which is why there are a few initiatives currently with an US university and I think some deal with a company or university in UK to also allow for local production of a new vaccine... it´s still early days as it hasn´t even entered trials yet, but it´s obviously gonna be needed anyways given our current situation. Understand that because of the proprietary nature of several labs in western countries, particularly in the US, something like that would just not happen. Patents are being broken and production and modification is being allowed in some of those deals. I dunno how things are right now, but afaik, the Moderna vaccine was completely hogged to the US alone... so it´s really no wonder other countries will seek for other alternatives. Astra Zeneca is embroigled in the whole EU UK situation there, which is yet another barrier for countries that are not the UK or part of the EU. As for the decision of China to use Vaccine as diplomacy tool and ignore it´s own citizens, sure, we can have a callous stance like that. But the reality that several countries and unions seems to be happily ignoring is that for a pandemic like this, you either go global or you go bust. You have all the right to be cynical about the intentions, as you´ll probably be partially right, but really, the worldwide objective right now should be giving out vaccines to the worst affected countries - because if you allow for Covid 19 to fester in specific countries, we already know what happens - fast rate mutations giving rise to new variants which might be more virulent, more deadly, and eventually render current vaccines ineffective. So, sure, it might not be out of CCP´s charitable heart, but ultimately, it is the right strategy. If China has low internal Covid levels and it can send vaccine to countries that are at their worst right now, this is the better way to go, even at their own interests. Let the vaccines, from wherever they are, go to reduce high proliferation rates at countries that are not being able to contain it. Because if this pandemic has really proven anything, is that most countries just cannot block a virus like that by closing borders. Most, not all, mind you. China has been doing a good job keeping it out right now, as New Zealand did, as Japan more or less. Which takes me to another point - there´s the other country that has very low rates of vaccination... Japan. You´d think a country that is trying to make the Olympics still happen this year would be rushing like mad to vaccinate people... I dunno if it´s japanese government inefficiency, or just a general understanding that they can wait longer, but for the current pandemic it´d help if it´s the former, and other countries in similar positions should also see it that way. Vaccines should go to countries worst affected, period. And of course you can see it as a selfish position, as I am a citizen of the worst affected country, but really... it´s not. If the brazilian strain that is rampaging through the country right not become widespread worldwide, things are still gonna get much much worse in the entire world before getting better... What I mean is, the whole thing is far more complex and intricate than it seems. But there you go, just wanted to share my two cents on the matter.
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  2. So, again, to be clear, it´s not that I don´t see a reason to be cynical about CCP intentions and some of the stuff that is happening, but really, I also don´t think being this one sided helps much. Investigations on China about the origins of the pandemic, misreportings, and trying to censor doctors who were giving the early alarm are very very bad per se, but at the same time, there are reasons why CCP is very wary about western countries, organizations and unions trying to come into their soil to investigate stuff. At this point, can western governments, countries and citizens even deny using such investigative teams to spy on other countries? Let´s just not pretend that most of these health related organizations are majorly backed by western countries, and promote western views. Can western countries really say they´ve dealt better and in a more prepared way with the pandemic from start instead of running around like headless chickens not knowing what to do and how to deal with other countries at first? Particularly on the governmental level? As for the Huawei, US-China trade war, and american intelligence thing, I just wanna put out an outsider perspective on this. First, allegedly, personal opinion, Bolsonaro would likely suck Trump´s cock given the chance. He absolutely followed the same far right news sources Trump did, absolutely trying immitating the same rhetoric, absolutely doubted the american elections for no reason. This part is completely true. But from a opsec perspective, not only Huawei has a big presence in Brazil and most politicians don´t agree with this hard line stance against the company, China is also a major importer of brazilian products. You add that to the fact that US was also spying on a former president of ours as revealed in Snowden leaks, plus the fact that we are also facing fake news and misinformation campaigns coming from american social networks that operate here, you start seeing there is much less clarity on being negative about a chinese company versus an american one, political views notwithstanding. What really has been happening in Brazil to change attitudes and change positions is that the federal government has majorly failed on the fight against the pandemic, it has some considerable chances of getting the blame for the severity of it, and politicians on the state and city level, plus justice system, plus institutions are making everything they can to revert things, with so much pressure and so many actions that the president is being forced to supress his egotistical views, or has an immediate backlash everytime he spouts his bullshit. His followers are dwindling, his popularity, despite still being too high, is at record lows, and it is very unlikely that he´ll be re-elected.
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