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One of the toughest questions ahead: Once there is a safe and reliable vaccine, how do you divvy it up? Today, the WHO gave us their initial answer, which will be closely studied, I'm sure. A short thread on the basics:
The WHO plan has two phases: In the first phase, allocation will be proportional, meaning every country will get a share of the available vaccine supply proportional to its population. So, to start, Canada gets enough for 3 percent of its population and so does, say, Iraq.
Once Covax has doled out enough vaccine for 20 percent of the population of each participating country, the second phase begins. In this phase, each country's Covid risk will be considered. That means high-risk countries get more vaccine than low risk countries.
The two phase approach reflects the political nature of all this. Under different circumstances, Canada and Iraq might not get the same share. But (1) WHO is a member state organization and (2) Covax is trying to attract rich countries.
Several public health experts told me they see it as a sort of strategic compromise. “It’s a very pragmatic and expedient way of trying to put forward a simple plan and will not ignite a food fight among different member states in the first phase,” @MorrisonCSIS said.
Not everyone loves the plan. A group of experts recently critiqued the country-based approach. They proposed an alternate theoretical model called the Fair Priority Model. Here is good summary, if you are interested. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-decide-who-should-get-a-covid-19-vaccine-first/
The debate about the ethics of vaccine allocation is going to be central going forward, so it is worth reading in and thinking about what "equitable" allocation means—and what it means under current conditions.
And you can read the whole piece here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/coronavirus-vaccine-covax-who/2020/09/21/d21c7b4a-f9d3-11ea-a510-f57d8ce76e11_story.html
