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Rich nations that make up a fraction of the world’s population have already purchased more than half of promised stocks of the Covid-19 vaccine, a study showed, as US President Donald Trump pledged to begin inoculating. Americans in a few weeks.
Big Pharma is rushing to produce an effective jab to counter a virus that has killed more than 935,000 people worldwide and infected nearly 30 million.
The head of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, warned on Wednesday against “vaccine nationalism” that she said could put lives at risk by depriving the most vulnerable of the poorest nations of immunity.
But a study published by Oxfam showed that a group of rich countries that represent only 13% of the world’s population have already secured most of the doses.
“Access to a life-saving vaccine shouldn’t depend on where you live or how much money you have,” said Robert Silverman of Oxfam America. “Covid-19 anywhere is Covid-19 everywhere.”
The top five vaccine candidates currently in late-stage trials will be able to deliver 5.9 billion doses, enough to inoculate about three billion people, according to the Oxfam report.
About 51% of those coups have been targeted by the rich world, including the United States, Britain, the European Union, Australia, Hong Kong and Macau, Japan, Switzerland, and Israel.
The remaining 2.6 billion have been bought or promised to developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, China, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico.
Vaccine nationalism
Trump said Wednesday that he would begin rolling out a vaccine in the United States next month, contradicting doubts voiced by a leading health expert in his administration, who said a jab was unlikely to be widely available until mid-2021.
“We are very close to that vaccine, as you know … We think we can start sometime in October” or shortly after, Trump said.
Democrats have raised concerns that Trump is pressuring government health regulators and scientists to pass a rushed vaccine in time to help him on his uphill run for re-election in early November.
“We’re just weeks away from getting it, you know, it could be three weeks, four weeks,” the president said in a public session with voters in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
But in an implicit blow to Trump’s focus on the US pandemic first, von der Leyen said Europe would support multilateral bodies like the World Health Organization in their attempts at a more equitable implementation.
“None of us will be safe until we are all safe, wherever we live, whatever we have,” he said.
“Vaccine nationalism puts lives at risk. Cooperation on vaccines saves them. “
Going hard and early
The global economy has been devastated by the pandemic, and many nations still maintain restrictions on their populations to contain further outbreaks.
New Zealand was added to the list of economic casualties on Thursday when it reported that it had plunged into recession for the first time in a decade.
The country registered a record contraction of 12.2% for the April-June quarter, which coincided with a strict closure from March to May.
The decline follows a 1.6% contraction in the first three months of 2020, confirming that New Zealand is in recession.
But there was optimism that the stage had been set for a strong recovery.
“Doing everything possible and early means we can come back faster and stronger,” said Finance Minister Grant Robertson.
“Economists expect the current September quarter to show a record jump back to growth.”
There were also positive signs in South Africa, where authorities announced the reopening of borders to most countries starting next month, as part of a broader loosening of antivirus restrictions as infection figures improve.
Africa’s most industrialized economy closed its borders at the beginning of a strict national lockdown in late March.
The number of new infections has dropped from an average of 12,000 a day in July to less than 2,000 in recent days.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation that international travel would resume “gradually and cautiously” starting October 1.
“We have weathered the coronavirus storm,” he said.
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