via strategypage
In mid-April, a senior FBI official warned that cyber spies were attacking U.S. and allied medical research institutions developing coronavirus vaccines. The U.S. Department of Justice later pegged China as the chief witch doctor of medical espionage and suggested a crash American COVID-19/Wuhan virus vaccine project nicknamed Operation Warp Speed is Beijing’s major target.
More information broke on this yesterday. However, the facts were already appearing a month ago. A vaccine is a powerful tool, in so many ways.
…the nation that develops and deploys the first safe and clinically effective vaccine will be able to do many things. Protecting your nation’s population is more than a material medical advantage. A vaccinated population has an economic advantage over adversaries.
Developing an effective vaccine enhances diplomatic power. Obviously, the discoverer’s allies are in line to benefit. But don’t underestimate prestige power of an effective vaccine’s quick discovery and rapid employment. Effectiveness is primary. However, speed demonstrates a society’s ability to rapidly face new, threatening conditions and produce a response that benefits the world.
A Nobel Prize isn’t the only measure of a nation’s creative scientific vitality, but it is a measure even television gab shows understand. Hence this column’s side bet: An effective COVID-19/Wuhan virus vaccine developed by fall 2020 will warrant a Nobel Prize in Medicine.
So Communist China wants to steal the fruits of our scientific genius.
h/t AB