Hi everyone. This is incredibly great news. The Biden administration has committed to temporarily waiving patent protection. This is from the Washington Post: 

“This is a global health crisis and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement.

Tai said the United States would participate in negotiations around an international waiver of the protections, cautioning that the discussions would “take time.” The United States had helped block negotiations around the proposal since its October 2020 introduction by Indian and South African officials."

I believe there is more to do. Drug companies are going to fight this. And there are also important know-how and production techniques that aren't in the patents that are important to be shared for those hoping to make the vaccine. There is also the need to get more vaccines to COVAX rather than as a surplus for wealthy countries (the U.S. could have 300 million excess vaccines for example).

We might either update this petition or create an entirely new one. So stay tuned as more needs to happen. 

With geopolitical things of this nature, one can't always know what changed the course of events. However, I know Katherine Tai (the U.S. trade rep who plays a central role in all of this) got 73 emails from us since Monday before announcing this step today. In total, almost 400 emails were sent to U.S. representatives and drug makers. We've had 40+ tweets from our petition which I imagine got a ton of views. Nearly 80,000 people signed on to the petition. What we did absolutely matters and so I want to thank you all for your time and participation. And stay tuned for more information on continuing as needed. 

In solidarity,
Nate