First of all expired things are rarely dangerous and useless. Some medicines becomes less effective. A rare few transmute into something that could be harmful. There was a huge study by the department of defence on many drugs, since they stockpile them and it's expensive to throw them out when they expire if it's not necessary. It's mostly an exercise in covering-your-ass by the drug companies. But regardless, I doubt countries would appreciate receiving expired drugs anyway, even if they could be safely used.
The second thing is, couldn't it have anticipated that this was going to happen and give them away sooner? That seems like typical government incompetence.
I remember taking a video[1] of the government in Panama crushing thousands of cans of expired coke and other sodas under a forklift, hopefully so they could recycle the aluminum. If they had anticipated that, they could have sold them.
> The second thing is, couldn't it have anticipated that this was going to happen and give them away sooner? That seems like typical government incompetence.
AIUI, everyone who has surplus AZ has been trying, for a while. There's not all that much demand, as various countries are also trying to shift mRNA vaccines that are about to expire, and the mRNA ones are generally preferable, particularly post-Omicron. Covid vaccine access has become more a problem of distribution than supply.
The second thing is, couldn't it have anticipated that this was going to happen and give them away sooner? That seems like typical government incompetence.
I remember taking a video[1] of the government in Panama crushing thousands of cans of expired coke and other sodas under a forklift, hopefully so they could recycle the aluminum. If they had anticipated that, they could have sold them.
[1] The video is terrible, it has somehow been formatted sideways and it was taken on a blackberry back when that was hot tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgFSclNkxig