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How quickly the American people move from the scourge of the century to the indignity of the day.

I watched two news casts on local channels Monday night:
Golden Globes, a robbery that happened to be on a particular ethnic group, Israel & Palestine, fires, drought, sports, politics, and, oh yea, one Bay Area county is moving to Yellow.

I didn't hear a mention or any extended coverage of the tragedy in India or elsewhere around the globe.  I didn't hear any mention of the approval of Pfizer for 12-15 year olds.

I did hear a rather impotent PSA urging people to get the vaccination.

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In the news last week (so long ago in America's flash culture) was talk about removing or bypassing patent protection for the vaccines.   Of course, I'm for getting as many highly effective vaccinations in people as possible, but stripping patent protection would be, IMO, counter-productive now and for the next real miracle cure.   

Instead, I think there should be a big push to get licensed production in facilities around the world.  Many of the governments with lots of people can pay for their own vaccine production.  Some countries can pay for the production of vaccines for other countries.  As licensed facilities, the facilities would have to follow the procedures required to assure the quality of the vaccine.  

Alternatively, the governments could get together and buy the patents and go into production themselves.  

Another alternative would be for the appropriate countries (such as the US) to say that they will not tax the profits on vaccine sales to, say, Ethiopia, if the companies reduce the price correspondingly.  

(I am no economist, but if Moderna has to pay 21% tax for its profits on sales to Ethiopia, and the investors have to pay 40% tax on their payouts of the company's net profit, if those sales became tax-free, then the company and investors can get the same net amount while the price is reduced to Ethiopia.  Somehow it feels wrong for the US to receive taxes on the sales to Ethiopia if world-wide vaccination is a goal of the US government.)

Until the governments decide that pharmaceutical research should be pursued as one of the branches of government, I believe we need to have the potential for a gold strike for those companies that spend the money to explore all the pharmaceutical outcrops until the Eureka happens.
I don't know about national news. Local news on KRON and KPIX has been covering covid news, including the emergency authorization for 12 to 16 year olds and the situation in India. I wouldn't call the coverage extended but I don't really expect that from TV.