Just a couple of months ago, 130 countries around the world had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus
Despite the vaccination problems in Europe caused by the side-effects of the AstraZeneca drug, wealthy western countries are to be envied. The EU, the UK, Canada and the US can now go over vaccines as dozens of countries around the world languish in fear of new strains of the coronavirus and the long-term effects of a pandemic, writes The Guardian.
The amount of vaccines in the US is three times the size of the country’s population. Meanwhile, 130 poor countries have yet to administer a single dose in mid-February, according to UNICEF. Some states do not expect to get access to lifesaving drugs at all before 2023.
Inequalities are also fuelled by pharmaceutical corporations, “creating a false scarcity of what should be a global public good”, the article says. Vaccines could be produced all over the planet, but patent red tape prevents this.
Europe and the US have an obvious moral obligation to other countries, says The Guardian. Ultimately, the wealth of the western world has been gained at the expense of exploiting poorer nations.
“Less wealthy countries will suffer severe economic consequences and are likely to be further embroiled in a cycle of endless debt at the expense of loans that would be reparations if we lived in a fairer world.”
The coronavirus pandemic’s fight against the deadly disease was the start of a new era where vaccinated and unvaccinated countries would become the equivalent of colonisers and colonies. The Guardian calls for opposition to the “new apartheid” that Western countries are creating.