Getting the Vaccine to Poor Nations

Here is a good article by Doyle McManus on the challenges of getting the COVID vaccines to the poorer nations:

"Despite recent setbacks in Michigan and elsewhere, the United States is gradually approaching the day when we may be able to declare the COVID-19 pandemic under control — within our borders, that is. But that won’t mean the problem is over in the rest of the world — or even here at home in the long run. Until there is worldwide control of the virus, the pandemic will continue to affect our health, our economy and even our safety from terrorism."

"The first reason is obvious: The coronavirus won’t sit still. As long as there are large pockets of people passing the virus, it will mutate, and those variants, potentially less responsive to our current vaccines, will travel here from Brazil, South Africa and anywhere else they appear."

"...Dozens of countries, especially in Africa, have received no vaccines at all....The head of the World Health Organization noted last week that in wealthy countries, about one in four adults have been vaccinated; in poor countries, the number is fewer than one in 500."

"...And that takes us to the other, less obvious effects of a long-term pandemic — and there are many, as two recent reports from the U.S. intelligence community spelled out."

"Foreign aid to help end the pandemic isn’t an act of charity; it’s an act of self-interest....Many global leaders understand this — but wealthy nations, including the United States, haven’t acted on it yet."

"Let’s start with the economic impact. Our economy is recovering, but in poor countries the pandemic recession has a long way to go. The intelligence community reported that food insecurity worldwide is on track to more than double, from affecting 135 million people in 2019 to a projected 330 million by the end of 2021....A prolonged pandemic would be “a profound economic tragedy for those countries,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said last week, “but [it] would also be a problem for America.”

"Then there’s migration. When poor countries’ economies collapse, desperate people move to wealthier places — West Africans and Syrians to Europe, Guatemalans and Hondurans to the United States ."

"And if people in poor nations believe their governments are handling the pandemic poorly, some of those regimes will collapse, the intelligence community warned."

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come,” the National Intelligence Council’s long-range “Global Trends” report warned."

"...All that instability also presents opportunities, but not necessarily welcome ones. Assertive, autocratic governments like China’s may use the moment to shove weaker neighbors around. China is handling COVID-19 well; its neighbor the Philippines is not, and that could make it vulnerable."

"Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed putting the Group of Seven, a set of industrialized countries including the United States, in charge of a multinational relief effort that could include a temporary patent waiver. “The cost will be at least $30 billion a year,” he wrote — but that, he pointed out, is “less than 2% of Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.”

"To be sure, the United States has provided $4 billion to a United Nations program that is trying to get vaccines to poor countries — without much success so far. But ending the pandemic is going to take much more than that."

"The pandemic won’t be over anywhere until it’s under control everywhere. If President Joe Biden sees eradicating COVID-19 as Job One, he’ll need to lead a global effort before he can declare his mission accomplished."