Vaccinating the world is possible. The United States should lead the way.
The United States is well on its way to protecting Americans from the coronavirus. It's time to help the rest of the world. By marshaling this nation's vast resources to produce and distribute enough vaccines to meet global demand, the United States would act in keeping with the nation's best traditions and highest aspirations while advancing its geopolitical and economic interests. It is a moment of both obligation and opportunity.
Unfortunately, instead of a bold, comprehensive strategy to vaccinate the world as quickly as possible, the Biden administration has thus far made a string of tactical decisions: donating millions of doses to countries in need, signaling its support for patent waivers that might expedite vaccine production efforts and nudging two companies — Merck and Johnson & Johnson — to collaborate on increasing supply. These are good steps, but they are not nearly sufficient to meet the moment. The United States and the rest of the world's wealthiest nations are facing a great moral challenge.
Covax, the World Health Organization's initiative to pool vaccine resources, remains profoundly underfunded and has failed to meet even its modest target of vaccinating one-fifth of the population in the Global South. Without a major course correction, the rest of the world will have to wait until 2023 or later for large-scale vaccination initiatives like the one underway in the United States. The consequences of this disparity are expected to be severe. Hundreds of thousands more people will get sick and die from a disease that is now preventable with a vaccine. The global economy will contract by trillions of dollars, according to the International Chamber of Commerce, and tens of millions of people will plummet into extreme poverty as the virus continues to fester and evolve in the world's more vulnerable reaches.
As global hunger rises and global life expectancy falls, instability will prevail. Already, Colombia is mired in deadly protests over the pandemic's economic fallout. India is facing its gravest humanitarian catastrophe in a generation. As the United Nations has warned, a similar crisis in Syria would be catastrophic...
Unfortunately, instead of a bold, comprehensive strategy to vaccinate the world as quickly as possible, the Biden administration has thus far made a string of tactical decisions: donating millions of doses to countries in need, signaling its support for patent waivers that might expedite vaccine production efforts and nudging two companies — Merck and Johnson & Johnson — to collaborate on increasing supply. These are good steps, but they are not nearly sufficient to meet the moment. The United States and the rest of the world's wealthiest nations are facing a great moral challenge.
Covax, the World Health Organization's initiative to pool vaccine resources, remains profoundly underfunded and has failed to meet even its modest target of vaccinating one-fifth of the population in the Global South. Without a major course correction, the rest of the world will have to wait until 2023 or later for large-scale vaccination initiatives like the one underway in the United States. The consequences of this disparity are expected to be severe. Hundreds of thousands more people will get sick and die from a disease that is now preventable with a vaccine. The global economy will contract by trillions of dollars, according to the International Chamber of Commerce, and tens of millions of people will plummet into extreme poverty as the virus continues to fester and evolve in the world's more vulnerable reaches.
As global hunger rises and global life expectancy falls, instability will prevail. Already, Colombia is mired in deadly protests over the pandemic's economic fallout. India is facing its gravest humanitarian catastrophe in a generation. As the United Nations has warned, a similar crisis in Syria would be catastrophic...
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