In the coming months, vaccine nationalism is likely to compound COVID-19 economic damage and penalize more lives. It reflects the utter failure of multilateralism. It is old colonialism in a new disguise.
After mid-January, WHO chief Dr Tedros warned that, due to unequal COVID-19 vaccine policies, "the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure and the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world's poorest countries.”
And yet, in contrast,
The Economist reported it was “Asian governments” that “are needlessly hampering vaccination drives,” due to their “nationalism and geopolitics.”
The simple reality is that by mid-January almost 40 million vaccine doses had been given in nearly 50 rich-income economies, whereas one poor nation had only 25 doses. As a result, 9 out of 10 people in poor countries are set to miss out on COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, according to Oxfam.