A wonderful donation from the always inspirational @gretathunberg.

COVAX has a key role to play in ensuring vaccines are available & affordable for all.

But COVAX won’t solve the global pandemic on its own.

A thread…

tl;dr: Money doesn’t solve scarcity caused by monopoly https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1384159104235577349

First, what is COVAX? In short, it’s a global vaccine procurement facility.

It is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Read more here: https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX_the-Vaccines-Pillar-of-the-Access-to-COVID-19-Tools-ACT-Accelerator.pdf

The EU, US, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, and several other governments have pledged and donated billions to COVAX. This is, of course, welcome news. The money will will subsidise the vaccine bills for 92 low-income governments.

But...

But charitable donations are not a sufficient response & fall short of what’s needed to maximise vaccine _production_ for all.

The core problem is vaccine shortages. There are simply not enough doses being produced.

In short: Money doesn't help if there are no vaccines to buy

So, COVAX’s aim to be “a global solution for equitable access” is great, of course. But many low- and middle-income countries rightly worry they will experience significant delays in accessing vaccines...

...especially since high-income governments have already prebooked hundreds of millions of vaccine doses in an environment where initial vaccine supply will be scarce and the logistics of transportation challenging.

Only ~600m vaccine doses have been administered around the world (population ~8 billion).

75% of those in just 10 mostly high-income countries.

Most countries have yet to see a single dose.

And COVAX aims to vaccinate only 20% of every participating country’s population. That’s far from what is needed to reach herd immunity (estimated at 70% minimum) in countries that rely heavily on it as their source of vaccines.

Now, here it gets crazy. The same governments pledging & donating money to COVAX – the EU, US, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, etc – are among the very same countries that have been blocking wider vaccine production globally by obstructing the #TRIPSwaiver at the WTO.

The #TRIPSwaiver is a proposal that would allow WTO members to temporarily waive the application of some rules that are part of a global intellectual property treaty, called the TRIPS Agreement, until widespread vaccination is in place globally.

Global intellectual property rules are complex & impede the ability of governments to swiftly respond to the magnitude of the crisis at hand. A temporary waiver could help low- & middle-income governments fulfil their human rights obligations to protect people’s lives and health.

It would give governments leeway to pursue the fastest possible route to scale-up vaccine manufacturing by tapping unused or under-used factories anywhere in the world.

And the same countries blocking the #TRIPSwaiver (and thus also wider production) point to their donations to COVAX and use that as an excuse to deflect attention from their unfair stance at the WTO. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/11/rights-key-tackle-corruption-inequity-vaccine-access

"Oh, but we already gave to charity" seems like a good message, but not for governments who are actually playing a part of the core problem: global vaccine scarcity.

This policy is not only unfair but also dangerous, as it prolongs the pandemic. This means:

more death;

more economic disruption;

more chance for variants to emerge that ar more virulent, more deadly and/or resistant to current vaccines. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/two-thirds-epidemiologists-warn-mutations-could-render-current-covid-vaccines

As South Africa noted at a recent WTO meeting: “the model of donation & philanthropic expediency cannot solve the fundamental disconnect between the monopolistic model it underwrites and the very real desire of developing & least developed countries to produce for themselves.”

The bakery makes 100 loaves of bread a day, and you’re standing 101st in line outside. I can give you a dollar, or I can give you 20 dollars, but you’re still not getting a loaf today, are you?

The town needs more bakeries.

And to those who may point out that new production wouldn't come online instantly, well, of course it wouldn't, but the sooner it can, the better off we'll be...

...we need to stop wasting time: https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/1382301491789246464

Update on numbers above (h/t @paulniland):

905m doses administered worldwide;

only 204m fully vaccinated;

83% of shots administered in high- & upper-middle-income countries;

Only 0.2% in low-income ones.

Too slow & uneven. Need more production

https://nyti.ms/3gnDzn8 

Now, I know all my fellow EU citizens who follow me here have already signed this European Citizens' Initiative to get the EU to stop blocking wider vaccine production globally...

But you can always share it again with your own followers!

Thanks!

https://noprofitonpandemic.eu/