rotting sea cow

Pretty much spot-on @Clueless Northman . They wanted to win a war with a market economy. Any competent enemy would have trashed them. At least US invoked the Defense Production Act, but I don't know how much that helped.

Canada maybe? as well as any possibility of EU vaccine diplomacy. With India blocking exports, AZ european problems and other suppliers far behind the lines, ti's likely that COVAX is at the verge of collapse, despite all the money poured into it.

People mistake Melisandre and her burnings. Yes, they are horrible but she doesn't do it when unnecessary. Jon and Aemon mistook her. And the baby switch will bring consequences too.

Yeah. That's another big hint that something happened below the tables. Val was difficult to control before, attempting to escape and stabbing her guards. She acts very meekly afterwards and goes along Stannis plans. EDIT: Another important clue is "Ratttleshirt" presence in Stannis war council. If Stannis didn't know the switch he would have never approved such a low guy there.

Wow. So my suspicions are right. National needs played a big role as geopolitical interests in this export "ban". I wonder if things would have been different had India been a guest in the last virtual G7. Developed countries need to start to become more accommodating to the needs of emerging powers. As we can see, the world needs them.

Stannis most likely knows So, Mance, Melissandre and Stannis reached an agreement. Ser Godry is also in the known and probably Val. It might be that it's even known among the wildings as Tormund doesn't seem too surprised when the Pink Letter arrives. There are too many things that Jon doesn't know.

India gave them for free according to this article. https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-western-democracies-must-address-vaccine-inequity-whatever-it-takes/a-56652813

I think it's a serious blow to COVAX if India sticks to that decision. I'd dare to say that other factors played a role. For example, not long ago the WTO rejected a motion led by India and S. Africa to suspend IP protections related to products to fight the pandemic. They might be sore for that. I imagine India will try to provide vaccines to selected countries. If China and Russia can play the game, why not India?

We are not done with the AstraZeneca drama

People are humans with physical, social, psychological and sexual needs and therefore they will go around the government restrictions to go on with their lives the best they can. But politicians are in most part sociopaths and narcissists (or both) and they don't want to understand that. So, if they decree a lockdown they want to see photos of empty streets and few masked people distance 10m away, so the media feed them and they all congratulate themselves, even if the park 100m away of that photo was packed. They want to read that the numbers are going down so restriction work, if the numbers go up, they find another thing to blame, but never their own blindness.

Thanks for your views. Very well written argumentation. Governments keep claiming they are following sound scientific advice, which plainly they do not. Look at this article in The Lancet about the same issue. Pretty damming. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00455-4/fulltext and this is troubling

As other say, think on something that you always wanted to do or learn and never had the opportunity, lack of time, more interest in other things. It can be for fun, it can be to enhance your career perspectives, it can be skills useful in life, it can be the three things combined. But keeping ourselves busy is a key in these treading times. and turn off the television.

In Peru was a similar case. The vaccine-gate they called it. Some politicians "volunteered" to take part in the Sinopharm trials with the conditions they get the real deal. More or less. This is beyond scummy.

Apparently better than good data is coming from Israel. I cannot find a link that summarize the data in a clear way, but they are claiming over a 90% reduction in the PCR detected cases after vaccination. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/19/1019264/a-leaked-report-pfizers-vaccine-conquering-covid-19-in-its-largest-real-world-test/ I'm sure there will be soon more clear data and a lot of discussions how to extrapolate in that or the other direction, but in my experience when you have such clear signal, things hold. You really can expect over 80% protection against infection, symptomatic or otherwise.

BTW: Apparently a communication offensive has started in Europe to defend AZ vaccines. There are articles nearly in every country mostly saying that the mistrust is misplaced.