The number of doses of the covid vaccine received by citizens of rich countries is higher than the total number of inhabitants in those countries - an average of 105 doses per 100 people. In poor countries, this ratio is only two doses per 100 people. That difference will likely define the post-pandemic world.
There is a lot of discussion about the inequalities that covid has made apparent, both within and between countries. Paradoxically, just now that we are starting to establish control over the virus, inequalities are even more visible.
It is unlikely that this virus will be eradicated. It is more likely that it will become endemic, but that most western countries will successfully control it. Not poor countries either. The thirty poorest countries in the world, which together have almost a billion inhabitants, vaccinated barely 2 percent of the population on average. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, that number is 1 percent, in Haiti 0,24 percent, in Tanzania 0,36 percent. In those countries, "living with the virus" will mean something very different from what it means in the West.
The policies of the rich will further complicate life with the virus in the poorest countries. By the end of this year, the G7 club - that is, the world's largest economies - will have a stockpile of almost a billion doses of the vaccine against covid; Britain already has more than 200 million of them. Those stocks of the members of the G7 club would be more than enough to vaccinate the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa.
The irony is that many poor countries show significantly higher levels of confidence in the vaccine but are unable to provide it to communities that want to be immunized, while in many countries that have stockpiled people are significantly more skeptical of the vaccine. One of the authors of a study on global vaccine skepticism notes that "prioritizing vaccine distribution in the Global South would yield major advances in global immunization." But in a system where the distribution of vaccines depends on the depth of pockets, logic and need have little influence.
The story of Kovaks exposes the problem of global inequality. The project, launched jointly by the World Health Organization, the Global Alliance for Vaccination (GAVI) - a campaign to increase access to immunization in poor countries - and the Coalition for Innovation in Epidemic Response, aims for a more equitable distribution by supplying vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries. income. So far, less than 10 percent of the promised two billion doses have been delivered.
One of the reasons is that richer countries have managed to push Kovaks out of the vaccine market and make it difficult for him to obtain enough doses. To add to the absurdity, having pushed out Kovacs and taken the first place in the vaccine queue, many rich countries bought vaccines through that project despite its dwindling supplies. Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have bought hundreds of thousands of doses of Kovaks vaccines. Little is said about this scandalously selfish procedure.
With the exception of a few hotspots, African countries have had a relatively low number of infections and deaths until recently, but this may not have reflected the real picture of covid on that continent, but poor data collection. Now the situation is changing rapidly. At a time when the delta strain is largely under control in Europe because vaccination has weakened the link between infection, disease and hospitalization, delta covid is rampant in sub-Saharan Africa.
Most of the British population has been revaccinated, but some hospitals are still under considerable pressure. Imagine what it must be like in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Tanzania, where less than half of one percent of the population has been vaccinated and where the health infrastructure barely functioned even before the pandemic. In addition, covid has reduced the capacity of such countries to deal with other endemic diseases. One study suggests that the number of deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria over the next five decades could increase by 10, 20, and 36 percent, respectively, compared to the expected number without the Covid crisis.
In addition to the immediate impact on health services, there is also a longer-term impact on post-pandemic recovery. The IMF warned of a "deteriorating recovery due to dramatic differences in vaccine availability". Not only will the poor suffer from covid but they will suffer even more from the too slow recovery from covid.
Even more insidious is that covid policies will reinforce the physical segregation of the world. Rich nations already live in gated communities, with Fortress Europe, Fortress Britain, Fortress Australia designed to keep out those from poor nations, both migrants and refugees. "Relocation" - insisting that irregular migrants and asylum seekers be processed not in the place of arrival but in a third country - is now common practice in the West. This is how the United States treats even Afghan refugees.
In a post-pandemic world, defined by covid passports and quarantines, such policies will become even more ruthless. Last week, Greek police demanded that irregular migrants pay a fine of 5000 euros as soon as they got off the ship for not taking a covid test. Obviously a senseless move, designed more to scare and humiliate than to impose discipline due to the danger of covid. The public was outraged and the police backed down. However, we could glimpse what the coming world will be like, in which fears of covid will become an excuse for imposing strict discriminatory rules.
From tuberculosis to AIDS, there is a long history of governments using fear of disease as a form of immigration control to keep undesirables away from their own doorsteps. In a world divided into the vaccinated rich and the unvaccinated poor, many non-Western countries found themselves on the "red list" on several grounds.
And in fact, personal interest dictates the provision of global vaccination. Large unvaccinated populations increase the likelihood of new strains emerging, which can weaken the effectiveness of existing vaccines and make even immunized populations more vulnerable. Selfishness does not only harm others - it goes, at least in this case, against personal interest.
Inequality has helped define the pandemic, and will likely define the post-pandemic world even more. And the decisions based on the attitude: "It is important that we are well" are responsible for this, which are made by politicians in the rich world.
(The Guardian; Peščanik.net; translation: S. Miletić)
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