Premature abandonment of OWS is costing thousands of lives
The Biden administration abandoned Trump’s policy of sharing risk with pharma on the theory that the vaccines were the end-all of the pandemic, and we are dreadfully short on therapeutics as a result.
Getting a course of Paxlovid in Virginia remains much like winning the lottery.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Ironies abound.
If you are one who believes government is a better problem solver than free markets, then Trump’s OWS could be your poster child. But if you are one who believes free markets are a better problem solver than government, Trump’s OWS proves you wrong.
The underlying truth is that some goods we all want are well provided by government because they would not exist otherwise. Lighthouses are the classic example.
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True,
What OWS did was to free the drug companies of risk for developing vaccines and therapeutics. By guaranteeing a profit even if the drug was ready too late, there was an incentive to go ahead.
It was not intended that the distribution would be under the iron fist of government after they were available.
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You seem confused. Paxlovid is a newly developed drug. The clinical trial of its efficacy did not even begin until September 29th and its very promising results were first reported in November. In December, the government bought ten million courses before Pfizer’s studies had been reviewed or Paxlovid had even been granted an EUA. And it bought another 10 million courses a few days later. How is that NOT sharing the risk?
The current shortage you complain about is a function of the fact that manufacturing of this new product has just begun. One month ago, there were a total of 180,000 courses available world-wide. Is Biden supposed to have magical powers and will medicines into existence? Who, other than government agencies, should make distribution decisions given the critical shortages and high demand? Let states and/or insurance companies bid against each other, maybe?
There is nothing but good news in this story, but you people seem compelled to find something to whine about in just about everything.
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RE: “The current shortage you complain about is a function of the fact that manufacturing of this new product has just begun.”
The fact you mention is ambiguously significant. The government’s advance purchases may have shared risk, but apparently they did little to avoid production bottlenecks. Besides, other therapeutics that could have filled the gap were sidelined. It appears the government is committed to a vaccine-only response to the pandemic.
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“It appears the government is committed to a vaccine-only response to the pandemic.”
Many billions of dollars spent on various unapproved therapeutics say that you are wrong about that.
With that said, the government has had to respond to two unforeseen events. . .
That the Omicron variant would arise and spread all over the world in a matter of weeks.
The first is by far the worst development as far as deaths and hospitalizations go.
People attempting to blame the government for pandemic problems while spreading anti-vaccine misinformation are reprehensible. IMHO.
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RE: “People attempting to blame the government for pandemic problems while spreading anti-vaccine misinformation are reprehensible.”
So, your priority is to categorize people according to some standard of reprehensibleness.
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Throwing the bullshit flag on their bullshit is NOT going to make them happy. They will attempt to frame the argument in a manner that makes it implausible to win the argument. Because when you do win, they will just move the goalposts.
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My priority in discussing this is to assess blame where blame is due. Expressing my opinions about what constitutes reprehensible behavior is secondary.
The very people whose actions and words have made the pandemic are worse are the ones trying to somehow blame the government in general and President Biden in particular. I find that reprehensible.
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