Sorry, I hadn’t read the New York Times article.

“Dr. Gokal said he called a Harris County public health official in charge of operations to report his plans to find 10 people to receive the remaining doses. He said he was told, simply: OK.”

There are also at least two methods being tested for increasing the number of doses without increasing production (low-dead-space needles and using smaller doses). Neither would even be looked at if the goal was to maximize profits.

The companies that help end the pandemic are going to have a lot of political capital for a long time. That’s worth taking a significant loss when it comes to the vaccines.

Supply limitations are due to a number of issues. First, some vaccines need to be kept ridiculously cold, and getting storage capacity capable of handling those temperatures is difficult. Finding ways to avoid waste under such conditions is not easy. Second, bureaucratic hurdles are everywhere, from the FDA to local hospitals–this pandemic has demonstrated, in many industries and government agencies, that there are numerous policies that simply don’t make sense. And who gets the vaccine when has become a political football, which doesn’t help, especially in an election year (not saying anything against either party; I’m just saying that when the folks making the rules change confusion inevitably follows). No need to accuse companies of greed; there’s enough other problems to more than adequately explain what we’re seeing.

It’s my understanding that once the vials are defrosted — whether or not actually opened — they have to be used within a certain window of time and cannot be refrozen.

Where did you get the idea that the vaccine producers are artificially limiting the supply, in order to drive up the price? In the US, the vaccine prices for the foreseeable future are already set, by contract, so limiting the supply would be a disincentive for the producers.

Where did you get that he “called a supervisor to get approval before he did it”? I was thinking that his real “crime” was not getting higher-level approval before proceeding.

Please explain the part about the grand jury. Thank you.