For all that COVID has taken from us, it’s offered a vivid demonstration of the porousness of our borders, and interconnectedness of our fates. EricLevitz writes
Giving is getting. Photo: Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images Long COVID, short human rationality. That would have been dynamite investment advice circa early June .
There are two dimensions to our species’ collective failure of solidarity and rationality. One is mass abstention from vaccination in wealthy countries. This phenomenon varies greatly in prevalence across the OECD. Some nations have achieved superlative vaccination rates despite late starts and relatively meager national resources. But anti-vaxx sentiment has proven exceptionally widespread in the United States.
Yet when it comes to COVID, the dictates of social responsibility and narrow self-interest tend to overlap . The unvaccinated’s pursuit of normality at others’ expense is, in the aggregate, quixotic.
Covax had its own internal flaws. And any global vaccination campaign was going to run into logistical difficulties. Vaccines require select raw materials, customized manufacturing sites, and demanding storage conditions. Taking production of any good from zero to 12 billion in a year’s time is no easy task; as of September 1, only about five billion doses had been delivered. But the wealthy world’s hoarding of jabs and dollars has exacerbated Covax’s every challenge.
As mentioned, other wealthy countries have contributed even less than the U.S. At this week’s meeting of the G20, the world’s rich nations vowed that “no one must be left behind in the vaccination campaign.” But this “political” commitment to aiding the global vaccine drive was not accompanied by any concrete financial pledge.
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