Vaccines, Veracity and Vladimir Putin

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/03/johnson-johnson-says-coronavirus-vaccine-prevents-severe-illness-in-hamsters.html

On Tuesday the 11th of August, Russia announced its creation of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Shortly after, on the 16th of August, China stated that it had invented a similar vaccine. Considering that most countries have been under lockdown since the first quarter of the year, and two extremely powerful countries claim to have found a solution, this news should have been sensational. However, these declarations have prompted absolutely no response or reaction from other world leaders! Could this be because nobody believes these claims? If so, what prompted such disbelief in China and Russia?

First of all, let’s ask ourselves a simple question- what is the probability of either China or Russia coming up with a vaccine so quickly? Usually, the research, discovery and development stages of a vaccine take at least two to five years. Hence, it is extremely unlikely that either of the countries has created a vaccine in less than a year of experimentation.

Even when the vaccine is ready, it must go through a series of examinations before it is released to the public. First is a preliminary study, which checks that the vaccine will not cause any harmful side-effects. The second is a test of safety and efficiency, with about a few hundred test subjects. Finally, if the vaccine passes the first two trials, it is evaluated on its effectiveness compared to other available treatment. This third stage requires a few thousand people to be tested, and takes several months. The fact that neither China nor Russia has had enough time to follow this entire procedure makes us believe that their COVID-19 vaccines at best, do not work, and at worst, are harmful to humans.

Now, let’s take a look at the track records of the two nations. Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak, China has lost a large part of its credibility for allegedly concealing the true danger of the virus at the beginning. After this, the country further damaged its reputation by sending supposedly faulty Coronavirus test kits to India and substandard masks to Canada.

Now, what about Russia? According to the Pew Research Centre, “majorities in North America and much of Europe see Russia in a negative light.” The institution also mentions that “in only three countries surveyed do majorities express a favorable opinion of Russia: Vietnam (83%), Greece (64%) and the Philippines (55%).” Here is a graph detailing their survey.

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/08/16/publics-worldwide-unfavorable-toward-putin-russia/pg_2017-08-16_views-of-russia_001/

From these points, we can see that most of the world is not inclined to believe the two nations’ announcements. So, could this be an example of the age-old “Boy Who Cried Wolf” story? Have the two countries’ reputations fallen so far that no one is willing to believe their leaders’ statements anymore? Integrity in politics today is definitely not what it once was, but has it really reached the point where hardly any of us have faith in an announcement by a world leader?

Say the two countries haven’t really produced effective vaccines, what could be their motivations behind lying about this?

Russia, for one, was at a Cold War with the USA until about 1960. Now, in the 21st century, tensions between the two countries have risen again. Is this one of Russia’s attempts to pull ahead of the United States in terms of science and medicine? China, too, has been competing so severely with the USA recently, that their current stand-off has been dubbed by many as “a new Cold War”. Thus, it is extremely plausible that the nations’ main reason for lying about their progress in vaccines is a quest for political dominance over other powerful countries such as the USA.

From the above facts, the probability of China or Russia having created a Coronavirus vaccine seems extremely low. Only time will tell whether the two states really have such a vaccine, or are simply misleading us.