BATTLE FOR WORLD | August 31, 2020: On August 12 Russia announced that it was the first country in the world to register a vaccine against the coronavirus COVID-19. The approval of the vaccine before large-scale safety trials prompted disbelief and attacks from the United States and Britain – but now health authorities in those countries say they might do the same as Russia.

On Monday (August 31) director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, told reporters that the fund "notes the desire of the US and British authorities to follow the fast-track registration procedure for coronavirus vaccines that has been applied in the Russian Federation". And that "The Western world was shocked by Russia's success and had to go through four stages of accepting the inevitable: denial, anger, depression, and ultimately acceptance. Recent statement show that some of our Western partners already passed the stage of depression and it has now been accepted that Russia's approach is the correct one."

The U.S. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn told the Financial Times that he is prepared to fast-track the coronavirus vaccine process with emergency use authorization before Phase 3 trials are completed, if the benefits outweigh the risks.

(BattleForWorld: To fast-track vaccines in this way for approval, the manufacturer has to be confident in the science and technology that goes into producing the vaccine. Also keep in mind that the U.S. has exempted vaccine manufacturers from liability. Does this give them a loophole to fast-track vaccine approval?)

While the U.K. government has set out plans to approve a future vaccine using a temporary authorization by the local drugs regulator before getting the approval of the European Medicines Agency that the UK is still a member of.

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