The UK has stockpiled 650 million doses of COVID-19 injections for the duration of the pandemic. Only 142 million have been used. The remainder will expire six to 12 months after the date of manufacture,first which means millions of doses will go to waste.
It is not yet known whether several doses from the 650 million figure have yet to be produced, or exactly how much is being paid per dose, but what is clear is that a massive waste of federal funds is imminent.
Based on estimates that the US government paid about $20 per dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19, about $15 per dose of Moderna, and about $4 per dose of Astra Zeneca, assuming the price average $10 per dose of COVID-19 shot purchased.
With this estimate, around $5 billion could be wasted on unused footage. “Will the public forgive this huge waste of public funds because it happened with good intentions during the state of emergency?” Daily Skeptic asked. “That remains to be seen.”2
Billions of dollars squandered in the name of COVID-19
In addition to the millions of COVID-19 injections that are about to expire, the UK government has also written off billions of dollars in spending on protective equipment, including items that are not used before their expiration date and equipment that is not used before its expiration date. another device deemed unfit for use. Another $715.9 million was spent on ventilators, only 10% of which was actually used.
Similar ventilator stockpiling occurred in the US but as early as August 2020, this was clearly a mistake. “America has too many ventilators,” The Washington Post wrote on August 18, 20203 – a prominent face in media headlines posted just a few months earlier, which spoke of ventilator shortages and the “huge need for ventilators”.4,5
At that time, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) distributed 15,057 ventilators, while 95,713 were unused in the federal stockpile. By comparison, 10,000 ventilators made up the federal stockpile in April 2020.6 By September 2020, HHS announced that the national ventilator stockpile had reached full capacity, with nearly 120,000 ventilators available.7 As Daily Skeptic explains:8
“The misuse of all taxpayers’ funds must be examined in an independent investigation and by the Government so that lessons can be learned and in the future a robust regulatory system in place over time. real so that even stocks bought in haste and urgently are kept at a reasonable rate for anticipated demand.
Overreaction and panic in the spring of 2020 led to decisions that have now turned into a massive waste of public money. If there is a shortage of anything that may be needed to meet the needs of the public emergency, the public purse is open.
In fact, the wallet appears to be treated more like Mary Poppins’ bottomless magic carpet bag, with no sign of any cautious scrutiny being applied to funding decisions as long as they serves the purpose of proving to the public that the Government is ‘doing something’ about Covid. The results of that fiscal unrest are now clear for all to see. “
Millions of COVID-19 photos are wasted in the US
The waste of money stockpiling COVID-19 shots isn’t unique to the UK. In the US, an ABC News investigation found millions of shots went unused as demand dwindled. In speaking with health department officials in all 50 states, they found that millions of COVID-19 shots will be wasted, unused, or about to expire in the coming weeks. This includes:9
- 1.7 million doses wasted in Michigan as of December 2020
- 619,000 unused doses in Colorado
- 3.6 million photos are in a stockpile in California
- Nearly 760,000 doses are considered non-viable, spoiled, or expired in Oregon
- More than 850,000 doses wasted in Wisconsinten
‘Sleeping Contracts’ Guaranteed Purchase of Past Pandemic Vaccines
It is said that history repeats itself and we have seen great waste from previously stockpiled vaccines. Pandemics have come and gone around the world for centuries, but in recent history they have been used as a point of manipulation to benefit corporations, especially pharmaceutical companies.
You may remember in 2005, it was predicted that bird flu would kill between 2 million and 150 million people,11 but it turned out to be a lot of hot air, and motivated me to write the book “The Great Bird Flu Hoax”.
At the time, the journal Nature Immunology published an editorial saying that fear of avian influenza had prompted government officials to prioritize the development of influenza pandemic response plans, and that WHO considered Bird flu is the #1 health concern.
In the years that followed, WHO made agreements – known as “sleeping contracts” – with European and African countries in the name of protecting people from a future global pandemic.
The contracts state that countries will purchase the vaccine in the event of a pandemic, but this is only necessary if the WHO declares a phase 6 influenza pandemic.twelfth For example, both GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Baxter are included in the contract with the UK parliament, which states pharmaceutical companies will supply the UK with pandemic influenza vaccines and is valued at 155.4 million pounds (more than $206 million) over four years.13
“Unfortunately,” CHD notes, “the contracted government officials never suspected that GSK contributed millions of dollars to WHO in exchange for control over the decisions that led to GSK’s failure.” “.14
Swine Flu: Does History Repeat?
On June 11, 2009, WHO declared H1N1 swine flu a phase 6 global influenza pandemic, even though it caused only 144 deaths worldwide. That statement brought dormant contracts to life, with $18 billion in stage directed toward H1N1 vaccine production, including GSK’s Pandemrix.
The scientists then drafted WHO guidelines that recommend that governments stockpile swine flu drugs that have been paid for by pharmaceutical companies that profit from the recommendations.15 WHO consulted the Emergency Committee from the WHO International Health Regulations Review Committee.
The guidance of many of these top experts has benefited the pharmaceutical industry, but their identities are kept secret to “protect them from outside influences”.16 In 2010, a joint investigation by the BMJ and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed disturbing conflicts of interest between the main panel members and the pharmaceutical industry. According to BMJ:17
“The BMJ/The Bureau investigation reveals a system that is struggling to manage the inherent contradictions between the pharmaceutical industry, WHO and the global public health system, all of which are based on the same team. scientific experts.
Our investigation has identified key scientists involved in WHO’s pandemic planning, who have clear interests, some of whom are or have been funded by Pharmaceutical companies have gained from the guidelines they are drafting.
However, these interests have never been publicly disclosed by WHO and, despite repeated requests from the BMJ/Department, WHO has not provided any details on whether such conflicts were declared. announced by the relevant experts and what, if any, has been done about them. ”
At the time, the late Labor MP Paul Flynn, told The Guardian, “The drug company’s tentacles of influence lie at every level in the decision-making process … there has been a distortion of priorities. of public health services across Europe, the squandering of huge public funds and the provocation of unwarranted fear.”18
In a similar example, a lawsuit filed against drug maker Roche alleges that the company made false statements and misrepresented studies, causing the US government to stockpile $1.5 billion in flu drug Tamiflu. oseltamivir).19
The lawsuit, which was sealed in September 2019, accuses Roche of tricking the US government into stockpiling Tamiflu while misrepresenting its effectiveness. According to the Houston-based Lanier Law Firm, which filed the lawsuit:20
“The lawsuit claims the drug manufacturer’s scheme involved the publication of misleading articles stating that Tamiflu reduced complications, severity, hospitalizations, mortality, and transmission. flu. The company then used those articles to aggressively market the drug to the government for use during the pandemic.”
Excessive Use of PPE Leads to Glut of Pandemic Waste
The build-up of personal protective equipment, or PPE, during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to another problem – a large volume of medical waste bins putting a strain on waste management systems and the environment. The World Health Organization has pointed out that the overuse of gloves and “moon suits” during the pandemic is instrumental in causing the health care waste surplus now seen worldwide.21
According to WHO, 87,000 tons of PPE were accumulated between March 2020 and November 2021 to combat COVID-19. Most of it was wasted. The unprecedented injection campaign also generated 143,000 tons of waste from syringes, needles and safety boxes, posing a danger to people living in communities near landfills and waste disposal sites. poorly managed waste.22
A WHO global analysis of healthcare waste due to COVID-19 also found that more than 140 million test kits could generate 2,600 tonnes of non-infectious waste – mostly plastic -, while “731,000 liters” Chemical waste (equivalent to one-third of an Olympic-size swimming pool) was transported. ”23 In the UK, almost 5 billion PPE items, worth almost $3.4 billion, will also go to waste as they are no longer needed or unfit for use.24 The WHO analysis noted:25
“Today, 30% of healthcare facilities (60% in least developed countries) are not equipped to handle existing waste, let alone the additional COVID-19 load.
This has the potential to cause injury to healthcare workers, burns, and disease-causing microorganisms, and impacts communities living near poorly managed landfills and contaminated airborne waste disposal sites. pollution due to waste burning, poor water quality or disease-carrying diseases. ”
Masks are putting stress on the environment
The WHO analysis paints a dire picture of the environmental devastation wracked by the overuse of PPE during the pandemic, but it doesn’t even take into account another major source of waste – face masks. According to Maggie Montgomery, technical officer for water, sanitation and health at WHO’s Department of Environment:26
“About the waste generated by the public, specifically masks. For example, in 2020, an additional 4.5 trillion disposable masks will be thrown away by the public, resulting in 6 million tons of additional waste. So certainly, the public is creating the most. At the same time, we feel that the health sector has a really important role to play and that there is concrete work that can be done to reduce unnecessary use of PPE.”
Montgomery says waste in healthcare facilities increased an average of three to four times during the COVID-19 pandemic, with some facilities seeing a 10-fold increase.27 “We’ve seen a lot of investment going on on the PPE side, the vaccine side, the testing side,” she said. “None of these investments think, ‘How are we going to dispose of all the waste?’”28
COVID-19 pandemic waste – in the form of billions of dollars from unused photos and large volumes of PPE and face coverings – is now something the world will grapple with for years, and could many decades to come.
