Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Why are we so sniffy about the Russian vaccine?

(Photo: Getty)

It didn’t help that it was unveiled by a swaggering Vladimir Putin. Or that it was called Sputnik V – a hardly subtle reference to the Cold War. Nor that we have grown used to Russian meddling and mis-information. Even so, there is still something a little surprising about the hostility towards the Russian vaccine for Covid-19 going into production this week, and set to be made widely available by October.

Medical opinion seems to be universally hostile, condemning the vaccine as untested and potentially unsafe. The WHO sounds suspicious, and a range of government agencies have started to sound alarmed. A few have even started to make the argument that releasing a vaccine too early may well set back the fight against the virus. It is hard to argue against the medical experts, and certainly on an issue as complex as vaccination. Even so, it is surely interesting that economic opinion is not so sure. For example, Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist at the IMF and now Professor Emeritus at MIT, tweeted. ‘The current policy environment is one of competing risks… between using a vaccine with possible side effects versus having the infection continue at high rates. Is the answer really that obvious?’

Blanchard is making an important point. Medical opinion is that we should always make sure a treatment is completely safe before going ahead with it. And of course, in normal circumstances we would all agree with that. We have set standards and procedures for testing new treatments to make sure that that risks are kept to a minimum, and that all possible side-effects are assessed properly before making a drug or vaccine widely available. Here’s the problem, however. These are not normal circumstances. 

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Matthew Lynn
Written by
Matthew Lynn
Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’

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