I listened to The NY Times The Daily podcast today about the Trump Admin turning down the Pfizer vaccine and if what they are saying is true, that decision is going to cost another 100,000 or so lives.
As part of warp speed the US government bought 50M doses of vaccine from each their six trial participants. Pfizer asked them in June if they wanted an additional 100M and the US government would only have to pay if the vaccine was successful. The trump admin was like naw we good. They asked them the same in October, same response. Then they asked them in November, same response. Then after the results of the trials came out they sold 200M doses to the EU instead. It was only AFTER that happened that the trump admin asked about getting more and Pfizer told them there was no way they could produce more by March because of the new contracts with the EU so they would have to wait until June.
Three god damn months lost because a US company repeatedly offered the US government a vaccine with absolutely zero risk to the US government in terms of payment and they still said no. Unbelievable incompetence at the highest level.