We can all (or almost all) agree that the most vulnerable should come first: care-home residents, health workers, over-70's, and people with serious underlying diseases. Among adults under 50 who catch Covid-19, only 200 out of a million die; among those over 70, 54,000 do. So everybody else can afford to wait another month or so, and let the vulnerable go first.
But who is ‘we’? Almost always it means people in our own country, not the whole world. Not even the country next-door, in most cases: there is now a most unedifying row between the United Kingdom and the European Union over vaccine supply, although they are among the richest countries in the world.
The EU’s 27 nations have 960 million doses of five different vaccines on order, with options for several hundred million more. The UK has 250 million doses on order from the same five companies (Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/Astra/Zeneca, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson).
That’s enough for everybody in the EU with plenty left over, and more than twice as much as the UK could possibly use. And still they fight over who gets it first.
The UK signed a key contract with Astra/Zeneca in June, while the EU wasted three more months on internal politics before signing with the same company – which is now facing production difficulties in its main EU-based factories.
London says it signed first, so it should get its doses first. Brussels, panicked by rising public anger at the slowness of the roll-out – the EU has given only two doses per 100 residents, while the UK has delivered twelve per 100 – demands a share of what the same company is producing in Britain. There will be tears before bedtime.
If this is how rich neighbours behave towards each other, is there any hope that they will support vaccination in poor countries far away? As it turns out, yes.
‘Vaccine nationalism’ is not an all-or-none thing. If the whole street is on fire, I will save my children first, but I’ll go back to save the neighbours’ kids too, and even their cats if there’s time. It’s not children at risk in this case, but the principle is the same.
Nobody can criticise Britain, for example, for putting its own most vulnerable people first – but it is on schedule to have them all done by the middle of this month.
As soon as that is accomplished, it should share some of its supply from Astra/Zeneca to save the lives of elderly French and Danes and Greeks rather than devoting it all to its own relatively safe middle-aged people. And as other supplies come online, it should share more widely too.
Within a few months, as more vaccines are approved and production ramps up, more doses will be produced each day than can be injected into the citizens of rich countries in the same day. This will happen because those countries pre-bought large quantities of many different vaccines in order to be sure of having some winners.
The vaccines almost all worked, so we are in the happy situation of looming over-supply – and there’s no need to wait until the rich countries have vaccinated everybody at home. Once their own vulnerable people are safe, they can spare some for the vulnerable elsewhere.
Canada, for example, has bought 214 million doses of vaccine, with options on 200 million more. There are 38 million Canadians, so say 30 million recipients – many of whom will be getting one-shot vaccines. Canada will have at least 150 million doses left over – or 350 million, if it exercises its options.
“Absolutely we will be sharing with the world,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the UK, which will end up with around 200 million spare doses, should be saying the same thing.
The United States has orders with six companies for 800 million doses, with options on another 1.6 billion. There are more than 800 million spare doses bought and paid for worldwide. Start sharing them now, not after everybody has been inoculated at home.
This is not charity; it’s self-interest. So long as the virus is circulating widely in poorer countries, it constitutes an enormous reservoir in which new mutations will occur frequently – and some of those mutations might render existing vaccines ineffective. The vaccines can be tweaked to deal with new variants, but we don’t want to be playing catch-up for the next five years.
Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
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I have read Gwynne Dyers Article "Vaccination Nationalism" and as a UK citizen who has spent many happy times in Portugal entirely agree with her sentiments. I would add, however, that not only has our Prime Minister Boris Johnson already agreed that we should share our vaccines with other countries subject to the prior protection of the most vulnerable members of the UK's population but also Astra Zeneca (which is supplying its products unlike Pfizer on a "not for profit basis") has agreed to use every effort to increase its production notwithstanding the attempted rubbishing (by politicians in both Germany and France) of the efficacy of its vaccine and the delays not only in placing orders but also certification for use. I hugely regret that the German and French preference for the Pfizer product, which due to its cold storage necessities, requires a great deal more infrastructure to administer and is is much more expensive) for whatever reason has badly backfired. I trust that the long friendship between our respective nations is not damaged by the political manoeuvrings currently being pursued by the politicians referred to above, perhaps in their effort to deflect from the bureaucratic legal and administrative bungling that is primarily responsible both for the delays in the rollout of most European countries vaccines. Finally above all we recognise that we are all in this together and am sure that the UK, notwithstanding provocation, will do its duty.
By Terry Liggins from UK on 02 Feb 2021, 16:35
Hola Bandoola Band:
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They say that we belong to each others
That we all are brothers
That we should learn to live with each other
But when times get tight
And you should try it as a band
Then all talk of brotherhood is over
And everybody steals whatever he can
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By Gustav from Algarve on 02 Feb 2021, 18:53
"London says it signed first, so it should get its doses first. Brussels, panicked by rising public anger at the slowness of the roll-out – ... – demands a share of what the same company is producing in Britain."
The Swedish-British company AstraZeneca produces in the European Union as well as it does in the UK. The deliveries of the vaccine inside the UK are domestic and from the EU. But inside the English dominated UK government there seems to be an attitude of "England first" (from what I read from Scotland, for instance), not exporting any of the vaccine produced in the UK.
The contract between the EU and AstraZeneca, which is published, is pretty clear. First thing is, that it clearly states the amount of vials to be distributed each month after the approval by the EMU. Secondly the contract states, that the production facilities inside the EU and in the UK are those to deliver the vaccine to the continent. It does not matter, who was first to close a deal with the company or what they pay.
It's nothing but English nationalism. They can do so. It's just another step on the way on becoming Little Britain.
It's as simple as that.
By Robert Miller from UK on 03 Feb 2021, 11:33
Anyone suffering with Insomnia, should read this article and comments - guaranteed sleep.
Yemen
Belarus
Syria
Bosnia
CAR
Myanmar
Burundi
DRC
Eritrea
Most of Africa
Etc
We don't give a monkey about them before C19 or after.
We all need to look in the mirror - because we are disgusting.
By Stephen Walker from Alentejo on 04 Feb 2021, 07:28