A proposal to end the pandemic
Kristalina Georgieva, Gita Gopinath, and Ruchir Agarwal Filed on June 1, 2021
Urgent action is needed to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain.
Many countries have stepped up in the global fight against the pandemic, as have institutions such as the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, Gavi (the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation), the African Union, and others.
Yet, more than a year into the Covid-19 crisis, new cases worldwide are higher than ever. Urgent action is needed to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain.
As the IMF has warned, economic recoveries are diverging dangerously. The disparities will widen further between wealthy countries that have widespread access to vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics, and poorer countries still struggling to inoculate frontline healthcare workers. As of the end of April 2021, less than two per cent of Africa’s population had been vaccinated. By contra