I have already told this story, but I will repeat it again, because it is a textbook. I was 11 years old, I lived in the city of Apatity, Murmansk region. Our school was small, so middle school students (those younger than ninth and older than third) studied in the second shift. That is, they came to school around two in the afternoon. And in the morning, respectively, we sat at home and watched reruns of yesterday's programs on TV.
And here I am sitting, watching some kind of nonsense, when suddenly the nonsense is interrupted - and the screen saver "Intervision" appears. And silence. I still don't know why I thought at that moment that something terrible had happened. Maybe even Brezhnev died. And the world will never be the same. If he ever will. And when the strict presenter appeared on the screen and said that the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee was announcing with deep regret, I looked out the window. I have remembered this feeling for the rest of my life. I looked out the window at the disgusted Khibiny in the snow. And I was waiting for all this to disappear now. And naturally darkness will come. Well, like death. And that's all.
Nothing happened. And when the other general secretaries died, we already treated this with cynical practicality - which means that we will not study for one day. But then, with Brezhnev, it was the first time. There was simply no other experience. And I didn't know what to expect.
Now I am almost 50. And the story of the coronavirus pandemic for me, 50 years old, is about the same unique experience as the death of the permanent ruler at 11 years old. And - honestly! - despite all my acquired cynicism, I expected some kind of international unity in the face of a common danger. Some kind of common action, some kind of cooperation. Yes, at least some - albeit meaningless, but international conference. On the highest level. Yes, at least at the level of foreign ministers.
But no. Instead of international conferences and joint actions, the countries of the world began to accuse each other of infection, of stealing research results, and when someone started to get good with vaccines, they accuse that this is not a vaccine, but you know what. And that it only makes it worse.
I repeat again: I had no experience. I do not exclude that all the other participants in this worldwide action did not have it (and we are all participants, there are no observers, the virus does not choose). But if some aliens were watching how humanity is trying to save itself from a dangerous virus, they would probably decide not to have anything to do with this very humanity.
The vaccine situation is one of the most striking in all this universal shame. Several dozen teams around the world have been developing a vaccine. Yes, there are different vaccines, but there was no cooperation even between teams developing vaccines of the same type. The primary is not the result - the primary is the publication. No publication - no vaccine. Patents are primary. No patent, no vaccine. Vaccines are not being developed as a means of saving people, no.
They are being developed as a commercial product. And that is precisely why a real capitalist competition has developed between collectives and even countries - who will be the first. After all, if someone is the first, he will skim the first cream.
That, in fact, we see in the story of the Russian vaccine, called "Sputnik V". The world community does not have this vaccine, because there are no publications. The largest international pharmaceutical companies opposed the registration of this vaccine (it is they who make up the Association of Clinical Research Organizations, which wrote a letter to the Ministry of Health). Of course, if the Russians are the first, then it means that the largest international pharmaceutical companies will not be the first. From a business point of view, this is understandable. From the point of view of a person, it causes nothing but disgust.
But everything has already happened. There is a vaccine called Sputnik V. It is registered and can be applied. And no matter what happens in the future, one thing is unchanged: the world's first registered vaccine against COVID-19 is Russian. Whether it will be widely used or not. Will some other vaccine replace it or not. Will she have any side effects or not (no one is immune from anything ever). All this will not change one thing: the world's first vaccine against this particular coronavirus is Russian.
And this, of course, will not give rest to our "foreign partners". As another satellite did not give them rest 63 years ago. How Gagarin's flight did not give them rest. Which, by the way, also flew on a far from perfect ship. But nevertheless he was the first. And the other first will never happen.
However, the difference between what was then and what will be now is obvious. Then the Americans accepted the challenge and began an honest struggle, the result of which was not only the landing on the moon (which, let me remind you, was welcomed by all mankind), but also the creation of technologies without which it is now impossible to imagine our life: the UNIX operating system, the C programming language, the network the Internet.
Now there will be no fair fight. This is what my acquired cynicism tells me. The Russian vaccine will simply be declared useless. They will declare her stolen. They will declare her dangerous. Publications in "reputable" editions will start coming out the other day, if they have not already started coming out. Because now no one is playing a fair game. Too expensive and too long. And not interesting.
But, I repeat, this will not change the main thing - it was the Russian vaccine that became the world's first registered vaccine against COVID-19.
And there is nothing more to discuss here.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.