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Coronavirus Vaccine on the Horizon, but White House Intervenes

posted by martyb on Sunday March 15 2020, @10:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-a-stab-at-it dept.

quietus writes:

German company CureVac has received a rather strange offer from the current White House.

On March 3, CureVac's CEO was invited to the White House, for a meeting with President Trump, Vice Pence and several members of the Coronavirus Task Force. Asked for when a vaccine could be ready, he estimated that a potential candidate could be ready within a few months. Apparently, that triggered the members of the meeting so much, that they've now offered to buy the company, at whatever price.

One condition though: production would be exclusively for the United States.

The move is not exactly one to gain popularity, and follows on the heels of the President's worrying statement that "a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe".

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @10:58PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @10:58PM (#971696)

    a random statistically normal German doesn't like Trump, and was talking smack about him. No news here.

    Already noticed many more scams, and this is just the type of thing the Trumpling would like to get in on the ground floor of, Golden Shower speaking. Online companies seeking to flog their video chat services to educators and students, Ebayers selling ineffective hand sanitizer, Glenn Beck selling Five Gallon Sealed Buckets of Coronal Apocalypse Survival Supplies (tm).

    But might be good marketing to Trump supporters, all the exclusivity and gold plating of Trump University and Trump Steaks, and the guerilla marketing of spreaking the virus at Trump rallies, and then offering the Greatest Ever Trump Virus Vaccine! (Note to Trump supporters: vaccines are useless after you have contracted the disease, it is too late.)

    Starting Score:    0  points
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @11:45PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @11:45PM (#971711)

    Trump Cow Urine(tm) and Nunes Cow Urine(tm) will eliminate COVID-19.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 16 2020, @07:07PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 16 2020, @07:07PM (#971972) Journal

      If Jackass urine and Cow urine accidentally mixed, they will react causing an unpredictably destructive result.

      --
      To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @12:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @12:53AM (#971739)

    > Ebayers selling ineffective hand sanitizer

    Here's part of why there have been runs on various "necessities" -- the price gougers are 3rd party sellers on Amazon:
        https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html [nytimes.com]
    The text is here if you are paywalled - https://archive.is/34BeC [archive.is]

    Article starts out like this:

    On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

    Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

    Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.
    (continues)

    It seems that Amazon caught on and closed some price gouging accounts...