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A mother holds her daughter's arm as a healthcare worker administers the child with Pfizer-BNT covid-19 vaccine in Taiwan.
COVID vaccine rollout: Taking stock 3 years on
It’s been almost three years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.
Since then, we have gone from the fear of greeting one another in public to the horrors of overcrowded ERs and morgues — to the remarkably fast development of a vaccine and its uneven rollout. Nearly 7 million people have died worldwide, and while the virus is still out there, most countries now have access to effective jabs.
How did we do? In mid-2020, many of us were visiting loved ones through hospital windows, spraying our grocery bags with bleach, and wondering whether public life would ever again go “back to normal.” It seemed like the horror would never end, but a break in the clouds came in Dec. 2020, with the first mRNA vaccines making their way into arms in the US and UK. (Chinese jabs were developed first but proved less effective, and no one remembers Russia’s miracle drug that never was.)
While it seemed like a long wait, the vaccines were rolled out in record time. “We had a virus that was not known to science before December 31, 2019, and we had a vaccine in people's arms in December 2020,” says Dr. Amesh Adajla. a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Prior to COVID, the fastest-ever rollout of a vaccine was for mumps, and that took nearly four years. Within 12 months, the coronavirus jab was available thanks to concentrated research. Decades of DNA research enabled scientists to being designing the mRNA for the COVID vaccine as soon as genetic code became available.
“Various scientific groups and manufacturers were able to provide enough doses to do very big studies very quickly, so we had answers super early,” says Dr. Margaret Ann Harris, an epidemiologist at the WHO. “Never in the history of humanity have we had really good data so quickly.”
Today, some 5.5 billion people around the globe – 72% of the population – have received at least one dose. But in the early months, the rollout was slow and uneven.
Global inequities in access and high rates of vaccine hesitancy made the world vulnerable to new variants. Vaccine nationalism — the me-first approach to battling COVID — saw Western countries opting to inoculate their own populations before sending vaccines abroad. But, as Ian Bremmer told us then, the race to outsmart COVID was (and is) global.
Health officials in early 2021 stressed the need to treat vulnerable populations around the globe first — and not only for humanitarian reasons. After all, outbreaks anywhere put everyone in danger of new mutations that could compromise the existing vaccines, as we’ve seen to varying degrees with both the delta and omicron variants.
The COVAX initiative worked to get vaccines to the rest of the world — to date delivering nearly 2 billion doses to 146 countries — but supply issues and vaccine nationalism slowed their efforts early on. Dr. Harris says she became “the most hated person in Britain” in early 2021 for saying that the next step after vaccinating the at-risk population at home should be to send jabs to vulnerable groups abroad.
So how can we do better next time? It’s perhaps no surprise that domestic politics pushed governments to cater to their own populations first.
“Politicians will always default to protectionism. The same thing happened during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic when Australia developed the first vaccine and they put export restrictions on it,” says Adajla.
The only way to avoid that is to make plans now. “We must put a clear strategy in place to distribute vaccines globally, put aside what keeps individual groups happy and go for what really needs to be done for humanity,” says Harris, noting how there are still plenty of countries where under 40% are vaccinated against COVID today
A WHO treaty is in the works that lays out recommendations for pandemic-related international cooperation, preparedness, and response. We’ll be watching to see whether it can help protect us from the scourge of vaccine nationalism.The Ugly Politics of COVID-19's Birth
The Ugly Politics of COVID-19's Birth
China’s COVID-19 coverup continues. Earlier today (July 22), Chinese officials firmly rejected a request by the World Health Organization (WHO) to grant access to laboratories in the area the novel coronavirus was first identified. China’s deputy health minister says the request shows “disrespect for common sense and arrogance toward science.” Beijing did allow WHO investigators to visit the city of Wuhan back in January, but its bureaucrats say there’s no need to investigate labs, because Chinese authorities have already ruled them out as a source of the virus.
When future historians write about COVID-19 and this global pandemic, they’ll lead with the losses—human and economic. The number of dead. The economic toll. The debts incurred. The lasting damage.
But they’ll have to start the story from the beginning. Where exactly did COVID-19 come from? Most people around the world accept that it came from China, but was it the result of an animal biting a human, an accident for whom no one in power is directly responsible? Or did the virus escape from a research lab, casting blame squarely on the Chinese government for hiding the truth?
We don’t know. We’ll probably never know, because Chinese authorities, those who might be able to answer these questions, aren’t credible and won't give outsiders full access to study the evidence.
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Even if we can’t track the origin of the virus, we can trace the coverup. On December 27, 2019, a doctor in China’s Hubei province reported to local authorities that he’d encountered a disease with dangerous respiratory symptoms. Doctors in Wuhan, Hubei’s largest city, began discussing their fears on social media. After monitoring their conversation, China’s public security service summoned Dr. Li Wenliang and accused him of “making false comments” and disturbing social order. They then arrested others for “spreading rumors.” Dr. Li later became one of COVID-19’s first casualties.
When a Chinese scientist sequenced the coronavirus’ genome on January 5, 2020, Beijing blocked him from publishing his finding. It was an Australian scientist who arranged for online publication of the genome on January 11 after receiving it secretly from a Chinese colleague. Today, experts accuse China of continuing to frustrate the ability of the WHO, and everyone else, to get at the truth.
COVID-19 and the global emergency its variants continue to create leave world leaders with a problem: How to demand accountability from the authoritarian government of one of the world’s most powerful countries (not to mention commercial partner), one which sees secrecy as essential to survival?
The Biden administration has made its choice. The new US president has called for a full investigation into the so-called "Lab Leak Theory," which posits that the negligence of Chinese scientists accidentally unleashed COVID-19 on the world. Washington’s line isn’t surprising. It comes at a time of US-China trade and technology wars. President Biden has continued the more confrontational approach toward Beijing advanced by former President Trump. Biden’s lead Asia advisor says the “era of engagement” with China is over. Competition is now the norm, and the risk of conflict, in various forms, is on the rise.
European leaders are none too happy with Beijing either. “The world has the right to know exactly what happened in order to be able to learn the lessons," said European Council head Charles Michel in early June. An EU-US summit then called for “progress on a transparent, evidence-based and expert-led WHO-convened phase 2 study on the origins of COVID-19, that is free from interference.”
Beijing’s credibility is even taking a hit in countries that are far more dependent on good economic relations with China. More than 90 countries are using vaccines created by Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech, China’s vaccine makers. The New York Times reported in June that though Chile, Mongolia, Bahrain, and the Seychelles have inoculated higher percentages of their populations than the United States, these four countries on the list of top ten worst current COVID-19 outbreaks in the world. That’s why the dozens of countries that have depended on Chinese-made jabs are worried that COVID-19 variants may kill a lot more their people and force many more lockdowns in coming months.
There’s little the US and Europe can do to force China to become more transparent. Smaller countries, increasingly dependent on good commercial relations with China, have even less leverage. We know that China is unlikely to become less secretive whenever its leaders believe the ruling party’s image and their hold on power face a serious threat.
But we also know that COVID-19 isn’t the last novel coronavirus we’ll see. For all its ongoing damage, COVID-19 was much more infectious but less deadly than severe acute respiratory syndrome (2003), Avian Influenza strains like H7N9 (2013) and H5N1 (2014) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (2019). Combine the transmissibility of COVID-19 with the lethality of any of those other viruses, and the next pandemic would be far worse than the one we’re battling now.
The pandemic has surely taught China’s leaders a valuable lesson. Whether they’ll ever admit it publicly, they must know that, with help from the WHO, they could have done much more to contain this virus in those first few dangerous days. Their international reputation would have taken a short-term hit that would now be long forgotten by most of the world’s people. Compare that with the hit China is taking.
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What We're Watching: The Omicron variant sparks panic and restrictions
The Omicron wars: Can we really afford to lock down again? In response to the new omicron variant first discovered by South African scientists, many countries have reintroduced pandemic travel restrictions that we thought were long behind us. Israel and Morocco have banned all foreign visitors, while tougher rules on quarantining and travel have also been enforced in the UK, Australia, Singapore and parts of Europe. Meanwhile, travelers from southern African countries have been banned from entering almost everywhere. Scientists say that it is still too early to say how infectious the new variant is, or how resistant it might be to vaccines. This disruption comes just as many economies were starting to reopen after more than 20-months of pandemic closures and chaos. The new restrictions are already triggering a fierce debate: some say that we are now in the endemic stage of the pandemic and that it is both unsustainable – and economically and psychologically harmful – to keep locking down every time a new variant surfaces. Others, like Israel's PM Naftali Bennett, say we are in the throes of a new "state of emergency," and that we can't afford to take any chances. What do you think?
A person holds a placard as supporters of the Economic Freedom Fighters march to demand a rollout of COVID vaccines, in Pretoria, South Africa.
What We’re Watching: African vaccine hub, Russia woos Taliban
Moderna plans African vaccine hub: Vaccine maker Moderna will spend $500 million to build a new facility in Africa that can produce 500 million annual doses of the company's COVID jab, which along with Pfizer, uses complex mRNA technology that can't be easily transferred. (Pfizer is already constructing a similar vaccine hub for local production in South Africa). Indeed, this is great news for the continent, where barely 4 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, due to lack of supplies coming in from wealthy donor countries and the COVAX facility. What's more, Moderna plans to use its hub to develop other vaccines against other infectious diseases rife across Africa like Zika or regular influenza. Still, the facility won't be ready for at least two more years, so in the near term African countries will continue relying on foreign suppliers to inoculate their populations against COVID, prolonging the pandemic.
The photo, published on September 29, 2021, by the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), shows the launch of what North Korea claims to be a new hypersonic missile, from Toyang-ri, in the Ryongrim region, in the province of Jagang, which was carried out this Tuesday.
What We’re Watching: Kim goes hypersonic, confident Europeans, Japan’s new safe hands
Kim Jong Un breaks the sound barrier: North Korea has announced the successful test of a "strategic weapon" that travels five times faster than the speed of sound. The Hwasong-8 missile, which is believed to be nuclear-capable, is a hypersonic weapon which is much harder for missile defense systems to track than conventional ballistic missiles. The US, China, Russia, and India are the only other countries known to be working with this highly sophisticated technology. And although experts aren't quite sure how developed the Hwasong-8 actually is, this is the third missile test that North Korea has conducted in the last month, suggesting that Pyongyang is getting plucky again as nuclear negotiations with the US remain in a deep freeze.
A European springtime — just before winter: After a year and a half of pandemic-related restrictions, dread, and economic uncertainty, Europeans are finally shopping, eating out, and going to the movies as much as they did in the days before COVID. This resurgent confidence has a lot to do with rising vaccination rates and falling numbers of new infections: nearly three-quarters of adults in the EU are now fully vaccinated, even if rates in Eastern and Southeastern Europe still lag. Still, as we noted yesterday, the good times could quickly run into a looming crisis of energy prices that is shaping up just ahead of winter.
Japan's ruling party plays it safe, again: Japanese politics are clearly not ready for disruption. On Wednesday, elites of the governing Liberal Democratic Party picked Fumio Kishida, a bookish former top diplomat under former PM Shinzo Abe, to replace the deeply unpopular and equally low-profile Yoshihide Suga as party leader. Kishida's main rival, the US-educated vaccine minister Taro Kono, actually got more votes than him in the first round, when rank-and-file members get to cast ballots, but in the runoff the party's bigwigs opted for Kishida's trusted pair of hands over the more outspoken Kono. Japan heads into general elections in November, but the LDP's majority is so strong — and the opposition is so weak — that Kishida is all but assured to be PM after the vote. Party elders evidently don't want to rock the boat too much as Japan struggles with an ailing economy and growing tensions with China.
Are we really building back better after COVID? Experts, policymakers weigh in
Eighteen months later, some countries are already recovering from COVID, while others are still in the thick of it. What's the current state of play on vaccines, what's holding up distribution, will the world emerge stronger or weaker, what should the private sector do, and has Biden delivered on US leadership expectations?
Top leaders from the United Nations, the WHO, the World Bank, and Microsoft weighed in during a Global Stage virtual conversation hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft during the 76th UN General Assembly, moderated by The New Yorker's Susan Glasser."Science needs to succeed over politics" — WHO's Dr. Mike Ryan | GLOBAL STAGE | GZERO Mediayoutu.be
For Dr. Mike Ryan, head of emergencies at the World Health Organization, one big obstacle is vaccine hesitancy. And the worst part about it is, in his view, powerful people who weaponize misinformation to serve their own political or economic needs. We need to have a healthy debate about vaccines and their safety, he says, but ultimately "science needs to succeed over politics."
World Bank Chief: Developing Countries Need to Know When Vaccines Coming | GLOBAL STAGE | GZEROyoutu.be
For his part, World Bank President David Malpass says that wealthy countries and more recently India's Serum Institute are producing so many vaccines that there will likely be enough stocks to inoculate the entire world by the end of the year. However, to accomplish that, he warns, the nations that need jabs must know when they'll get them so they can prepare the groundwork to get the shots in people's arms.
Michelle Bachelet: Building back better is not going back to 2019 | GLOBAL STAGE | GZERO Mediayoutu.be
Even if we are able to vaccinate the world in time, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, says that building back better after COVID shouldn't mean returning to the same world we had before the pandemic. What we had back then, she explains, were political, social, and economic systems that didn't respond to people's needs — now we can either break through them, or break down to become an (even more) unequal world.
Why Public & Private Sectors Should Work Together| GLOBAL STAGE | GZERO Mediayoutu.be
Building back better is also about the private sector. The question is not if but rather how corporations will get involved. Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, believes the private sector has a big role to play in helping to roll out COVID vaccines. But the most important thing it can do, he says, is collaborate effectively with the public sector — with a clear understanding of each side's role "so we each do what we're equipped to do and what we do best."
Biden's International Leadership "All Focused at Home" | GLOBAL STAGE | GZERO Mediayoutu.be
Many countries are disappointed about a multilateralist like Joe Biden not delivering on US vaccine exports that the rest of the world desperately needs. But it doesn't surprise Ian Bremmer, who says Biden upset his allies the same way by withdrawing so abruptly from Afghanistan or leaving the French out of the AUKUS loop. For Bremmer, Biden, initially viewed as way more competent and trustworthy than Donald Trump, is now one of the least trusted US presidents in recent history — apart from Trump himself — because whatever he says, his international leadership is "all focused at home."
UNGA WATCH: Who's gonna vaccinate "the world"?
Well, we're in the thick of "high-level week" for the United Nations General Assembly, known as UNGA. As always, the busiest few days in global diplomacy are about more than just speeches and hellish midtown traffic in Manhattan. Here are a few things we are keeping an eye on as UNGA reaches peak intensity over in Turtle Bay.
Biden's COVID Summit: The US president wants to "vaccinate the world" — but who precisely is going to do that? On the sidelines of UNGA, Biden is holding a virtual COVID summit on Wednesday in hopes of hashing out a more coordinated global pandemic response. That includes expanding the production and distribution of vaccines and medical equipment, investing in healthcare infrastructure, and establishing global benchmarks for pandemic progress. One target is to vaccinate 70 percent of adults in the world by September 2022. A lofty goal, as the current mark is barely 30 percent. Part of the problem is that wealthy countries have bought up lots of shots to vaccinate their own people first. And although the US has donated more vaccines globally than any other country, Biden's own administration is now weighing whether to recommend boosters at home. If the US does so, it'll be hard for other rich countries' governments to say no to boosters for their own people — meaning fewer shots available for billions of unvaccinated folks in poorer countries. Can Biden square all of these circles?
Hustling to revive Iran nuclear talks: Talks between the US and Iran have stalled since Iran's hardline president Ebrahim Raisi took power in June. But there are signs that side hustles aimed at getting negotiations back on track are afoot at UN HQ this week. On Monday, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss met with her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian — both are new to their posts — to chart a path forward on the nuclear front, as well as to discuss the release of arbitrarily detained British nationals. US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, told the General Assembly that Washington won't allow Tehran to build a bomb, but he is willing to return to compliance with the deal if Iran does the same. Tehran seems game to start talking again: Iran state TV confirmed this week that the long-stalled talks could resume negotiations in the coming weeks. This development comes just weeks after Iran, which has breached most of the nuclear deal's terms since former US President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, agreed to allow UN inspectors to monitor various sites linked to its nuclear program, sidestepping a threat of formal censure from the US, UK, France, and Germany if it failed to comply. Still, chasms remain between the two sides. Can sideline work at the UN narrow the gap?
Climate (in)security: Just a month ago, a new UN report called climate change a "code red for humanity." This week, there are two high-level meetings dedicated to doing something about it. First, the Security Council will hold a meeting Thursday morning on "climate and security." That's because climate change now threatens peace itself by heightening conflicts over increasingly scarce water and crops, and by exacerbating political tensions through forcing larger migrations of people fleeing war, famine, or flooding. Then, the UN hosts a high-level dialogue on Energy, where countries will try to hash out more detailed approaches to cutting carbon emissions. All of this is really just a warmup for the UN's COP 26 meeting in November, the critical forum for addressing that Code Red alert. Outside of the meetings, a big announcement from Xi Jinping: China, the world's top polluter, will stop building coal-fired plants everywhere... except in China.
Should governments set limits on the use of artificial intelligence? Definitely, says UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who's asking member states to hold off on further development of AI technology until all the "negative, even catastrophic" risks that come with it can be ironed out. But it's hard to imagine strong agreement from countries like China, the US, or Israel which already have powerful AI industries and are wary of handcuffing them with global regulation. Still, there's no question that AI can cause harm in a number of ways, from algorithms that codify harmful biases all the way up to AI-driven killing machines (Israel recently built a doozy to kill Iran's top nuclear scientist). UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres mentioned AI specifically in his speech on Tuesday, let's see if it crops up elsewhere in the next few days.
The Graphic Truth: Who relies on India's COVID vaccines?
Five months after halting vaccine exports amid a catastrophic COVID wave, India now plans to resume vaccine exports next month, vowing to produce some 300 million vaccine doses in October alone. Until then, India had exported more than 66 million doses, which were sold, given as grants or snapped up by COVAX, the UN-backed initiative to vaccinate low- and middle-income countries. COVAX had been relying on Indian manufacturers to deliver the bulk of its supply, and the export ban has been a massive blow to the program, which is well behind its target. We take a look at which countries have gotten the most shots from India to date, and their respective vaccination rates.