West’s Cold War Prolongs Pandemic
By Finian Cunningham
May 06, 2021 "Information
Clearing House" -
- "Sputnik
News "
- US President Joe Biden
this week hailed his target of administering
200 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine within
100 days of taking office. But Biden’s
apparent success in rolling out vaccination
may only offer his nation short-lived
protection from the coronavirus.
That’s because the American strategy may
be described as “vaccine nationalism” – that
is, the imperative to vaccinate all US
citizens before contributing to
international efforts to immunize all
nations. The lack of international effort
is, in turn, a hostage of Cold War mentality
toward China and Russia.
The gaping disparity between on the one
hand the United States and other so-called
rich nations and on the other hand the
majority of low-income countries is causing
observers to
condemn “vaccine apartheid” and “vaccine
inequity”. Whereas the United States can
claim up to 50 percent of its population
has received at least one dose of a Covid
vaccine, in many other parts of the world
the percentage of the population immunized
is only a fraction.
The US, Britain, and other
so-called developed nations stand accused of
hoarding vaccine supplies beyond what their
own populations need in order to be fully
covered. This largely explains why the
United Nations’ COVAX program to assist the
international distribution of vaccines has
so far failed miserably.
A more ethical and medically feasible strategy would
be for all nations to work in a concerted way to
ensure the global population is advanced together
with protective cover. The watchword: no nation is
safe until all are safe. Look at the cases
of India and Brazil. Those countries are seeing
rampant outbreaks of Covid-19 from new virulent
strains. Hospitals are overwhelmed and crematoria
can’t cope with the bodies piling up. The longer the
disease persists from lack of vaccination the more
new outbreaks will erupt. This will come back to
haunt everywhere on the planet, including those
nations like the US where vaccination has been so
far relatively successful. The perplexing
unknowns are: how long can existing vaccines
provide protection for, and can they work against
new virulent mutations of the disease? It could turn
out that the US’ seeming success at immunization is
only a temporary respite from the pandemic.
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Apart from lacking political will, several other
factors militate against an internationalist
approach to fighting the pandemic.
A big factor is a constraint from corporate
capitalism. The jabs innovated by the United States,
including Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Novavax, are
expensive and unaffordable for wide distribution in
poor nations. There are also technical problems with
storage and transport given the requirements for
sub-zero temperature preservation of the
pharmaceuticals.
Another problem is the intellectual property
rights of private Pharma companies. Poorer nations
are calling on Western companies to waiver property
rights so that the jabs can be manufactured
generically and locally. The United States and other
Western governments have refused to grant such
waivers in order to protect the profits of their
companies, even though public money was crucial in
supporting the rapid development of Covid vaccines.
Still another problem is the lack of public trust
in the safety of some vaccines. The
Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines
have been
hampered by concerns over blood-clotting
side-effects which can result in deaths. While
European regulators have said the risk is minimal,
and that the benefits far outweigh any harmful side
effects, nevertheless several countries have
discontinued using these jabs. The lack of public
trust leads to lower uptake in vaccination which
delays defeating the pandemic and thus all the
deleterious repercussions, from new mutations to
socially crushing lockdowns.
This then raises the question: why not
enlist the vaccines manufactured by China and Russia
in a collective global campaign to eradicate the
pandemic?
China has at least two vaccines available: Sinovac
and Sinopharm with several others also being tested.
Russia has produced Sputnik V. These three vaccines
have been given approval in about 70 countries so
far, including European states which are
dissatisfied by the slow rollout overseen by the
European Union. The Chinese and Russian vaccines
have been shown in trials to be highly effective in
preventing hospitalizations and deaths among
symptomatic cases. There are no major concerns about
safety issues from side effects. Moreover, unlike
Western counterparts, they are relatively cheap to
deliver and store.
China and Russia have also supplied some
countries with free deliveries based on humanitarian
concerns and have agreed to local production
arrangements.
This accounts for why so many countries around
the world have taken up the Chinese and Russian
vaccines compared with Western jabs. The World
Health Organization is
expected to give Emergency Use Listing to
Sinovac, Sinopharm, and Sputnik V in the coming
weeks. (Why it hasn’t done so already is a good
question, while having granted authorization to the
Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson drugs.)
When the WHO gives authorization to the Chinese
and Russian jabs, it can be anticipated that the
global uptake of these vaccines will greatly
increase.
China has achieved a vaccine rollout of
nearly 200 million doses in its own population
comparable to the United States.
Although with more than four times the population,
China has still more to do in order to reach full
protection. However, unlike the US, China has
supplied an equal number of doses to dozens of other
nations.
Washington and its Western allies have deprecated
Chinese and Russian efforts as “vaccine diplomacy”,
insinuating that Beijing and Moscow are using the
pandemic to gain a soft-power advantage. This view
is cynical and
contemptible. The inability to think
beyond Cold War-style hostility is literally making
the world a sick place.
China and Russia understand that the best and
most ethical way to defeat the pandemic is through
vaccine internationalism, solidarity, and
humanitarianism. No country is safe until all are
safe.
By contrast, the United States and its Western
allies are acting with narrow self-interest which is
prolonging the pandemic, increasing deaths
worldwide, and, ultimately, self-defeating.
Finian Cunningham has written
extensively on international affairs, with articles
published in several languages. He is a Master’s
graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a
scientific editor for the Royal Society of
Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a
career in newspaper journalism. He is also a
musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he
worked as an editor and writer in major news media
organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and
Independent. -
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