As we enter another year of this wretched pandemic that has killed more than 6 million the divide between the vaccine haves and have-nots is not only huge, it’s growing.
Across the US and Europe, where governments outbid others to procure sufficient supplies of vaccines for their populations, people are starting to gather with friends and family and travel more freely, planning long-awaited vacations to break out of “pandemic fatigue.” But there are billions of people around the world, including health workers, still waiting to be fully vaccinated and trapped in the cycle of outbreaks, lockdowns, disease, and death. The vaccine have-nots continue to wait, anxious, tired, only dreaming about traveling to reunite with loved ones or unable to attend funerals of those they lost.
This divide was not an inevitable consequence of the pandemic. It can and should be bridged.
For over 17 months, governments of high-income countries like the US, Switzerland, and EU member states have appeared at the World Trade Organization (WTO) assuring that the pharmaceutical industry would deliver on global availability of vaccines, testing, and treatments. But the rules that make it difficult to expand and diversify production of Covid-19 testing, treatments, and vaccines are still in place and a proposal to temporarily waive these rules, backed by over 100 low-and-middle income governments, remains stalled at the WTO.
Read more at Human Rights Watch.