I’m sorry, but you are completely missing the point.

Nobody disputed that mRNA, like all science, has many inventors. And that many people in the west as a whole has worked on the technology. Everything you said about the contributions to mRNA is correct, and doesn’t diminish US’s critical part in it.

The point was, and remains, that saying that the US has stopped becoming innovative, is just nonsense.

Aren't we are talking about relative innovation?

Of course the US is still innovative - I think the question is whether countries like China are simply copying or now out innovating in some areas.

Their appears to be a lack of acknowledgement in the US about the current rate of innovation coming out of China these days - the days of only cheap knock-offs ( as with Japan before them ) is largely over.

In the areas I know - I see increasingly impressive innovation coming out of China right now.

The way the US is treating China right now is counter productive in my view. The biggest risk isn't the Chinese stealing US innovation - the biggest risk is the US cutting itself off from a key source of new ideas.

In my view the next Biontech is more likely to come from China than Germany.

I don't know why the US is treating it as a zero-sum game.