Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund behind the new Russian coronavirus vaccine, offered some pungent ridicule of the deep-seated pessimism pervasive in the West. “If you wanted to bring water to the United States,” you’d be attacked for pollution, for stealing the water, etc. He was interviewed on CNBC today. He explained that it was a good thing to mobilize to save lives, and that countries are signing up to get and produce the Russian vaccine, because they have an open mind and a deep desire to protect their people. He wished the best of luck to the others.
He said that the one fair criticism is that the medical documentation has not been published in any detail. He explained that all that material is what allowed their vaccine to be registered and is ready to be published this month; however, he explained that it is a remnant of the old bureaucracy that such material is not allowed to be released until the state has examined and passed it first. Otherwise, he reiterated that their use of human adenovirus is safer and more tested than a monkey virus or even of RNA; that their delivery mechanism has been proven over six years of work with Ebola and SARS (the later a coronavirus); that they have organized a very gradual rollout; and that the delivery system will work. However, he noted that there is something wrong in people simply not listening. The CNBC interviewer provided a fresh example, trying a “gotcha” moment — that COVID-19 has been around less than a year, so how can Dmitriev claim six years of vaccine testing? Dmitriev laughed, “You got me!” and then explained, again, about the delivery system being different from the vaccine. Despite that, CNBC persisted in its choice of a misleading title for the link to the interview: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/russia-coronavirus-vaccine-has-been-researched-for-six-years.html
