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Can the world learn lessons from vaccine inequity?
Can the World Learn Lessons From Vaccine Inequity? | Missed Shot | GZERO Media

Can the world learn lessons from vaccine inequity?

GZERO Media and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation convened leading experts in public health, research, development, and philanthropy on Thursday to discuss the uneven state of global recovery from health and economic perspectives. Participants included moderator Natasha Kimani of Africa No Filter; Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer; José Manuel Barroso, chair of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance; Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control; Melanie Saville, director of vaccine research and development for CEPI; and Mark Suzman, CEO of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.They discussed vaccine equity and how we can end the COVID pandemic in a way that better equips the world for similar challenges in the future.

On many streets in the UK and US, it’s almost possible to forget that there’s an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With so many westerners double vaccinated and boosted, the threat of the omicron variant has eased. In fact, the CDC just lifted mask recommendations for much of the US. But that doesn’t mean the pandemic is over. For many countries, that’s far from the case.

Moderator Natasha Kimani, the research and media programs lead at Africa No Filter, kicked off the discussion by asking where things stand today as the world marks the second anniversary of the pandemic.

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COVID hypocrisy & misinformation
Ian Bremmer: COVID Hypocrisy & Misinformation | Quick Take | GZERO Media

COVID hypocrisy & misinformation

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:

Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here from sunny Nantucket and going to be here for a little bit. Thought we would talk about the latest on COVID. Certainly, we had hoped we'd be talking less about it at this point, at least in terms of the developed world. A combination of the transmissibility of Delta variant and the extraordinary misinformation around vaccines and COVID treatment means that we are not in the position that many certainly had hoped we would be today.

The United States is the biggest problem on this front. We are awash in vaccines. Operation Warp Speed was an enormous success. The best vaccines in the world, the most effective mRNA, the United States doing everything it can to get secure doses for the entire country quick, more quickly than any other major economy in the world, and now we're having a hard time convincing people to take them. The politics around this are nasty and as divided as the country, absolutely not what you want to see in response to a health crisis.

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A person holds a placard as supporters of the Economic Freedom Fighters march to demand a rollout of COVID vaccines, in Pretoria, South Africa.

REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Africa’s COVID crisis and the politics of selfishness

This time last year, world health experts were speculating about why Africa appeared to have escaped the worst of the global pandemic. Younger populations? Natural immunity created by exposure to past viruses? Something else?

They can stop wondering. Africa is now in the grip of a COVID emergency.

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India’s COVID calamity
India’s COVID Calamity | GZERO World

India’s COVID calamity

India's latest COVID explosion hits home as one Delhi-based journalist speaks with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World about her own father's death from the virus. Barkha Dutt has been reporting on the pandemic in India since it began, but nothing could prepare her for the catastrophic second wave that has hit her country in the last few weeks—and that has now shattered her own family. Would her father have survived if the oxygen tank in his ambulance had been working, or if the ambulance hadn't gotten stuck in Delhi traffic? She asks similar questions of her national government. Why was it caught so unprepared by this second wave, well over a year into the pandemic? Why has India, the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, been so slow to vaccinate its own citizens? And how much of the blame falls at the feet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

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