Until now, the United States was seen as one of the Senior carriers of the National Vaccine BannerVaccines are stockpiled so that most countries can be vaccinated by midsummer, even while other nations are lagging behind. a New estimate for one campaign, A global anti-poverty organization, calculates that even after vaccinating 100 percent of its population, the United States could have as many as 453 million overdoses. One analysis suggests that the world’s richest countries could donate nearly a billion doses of groundbreaking vaccines in the near term without putting their population vaccination plans at risk.
On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a Security Council meeting that no single dose of the vaccine had been delivered in 130 countries. He decried the fact that only 10 countries have distributed about three quarters of the world’s doses so far. “At this critical moment, vaccination equality is the biggest moral test before the global community,” he said.
Last month, global public health advocates He criticized the Biden administration For not doing enough to prioritize the WHO’s Covax facility, which aims to help poor countries purchase and distribute vaccines to their residents, and No waivers of intellectual property rules That would help other countries mass produce the coronavirus vaccines developed by the US pharmaceutical giant.
The Biden administration is trying to override the fortified nationalism of its predecessor. On Thursday, the White House announced that Biden would do so Initial pledge of $ 2 billion For use through the Covax facility, another $ 2 billion follows over the next two years after other donors fulfill their commitments.
at Interview with Financial TimesFrench President Emmanuel Macron said the United States and Europe You should donate about 5 percent of the doses They ordered the poorest countries. Doing so would help address fundamental global injustices, as well as press the soft power invasions of Russia and China, two countries whose cheap vaccines are being used across the developing world.
“It is an unprecedented acceleration in global inequality and it is also politically unsustainable as it paves the way for a war on vaccines,” Macron said. “You can see the Chinese strategy, and the Russian strategy as well.”
In the midst of this pandemic, vaccine distribution is not the only reflection of the emerging inequality. The economic shocks of the year living with the virus, as Today’s WorldView readers know this well, Is still being measured. The epidemic has accelerated a number of “future of work” trends, according to New report from the McKinsey Global InstituteAs working from home becomes more and more popular, work travel will likely never return to previous levels, and a range of jobs are being phased out through automation, including the expanded use of robots.
In China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, Britain and the United States alone, McKinsey predicts that 100 million workers will need to find different jobs in the coming years. Like My colleague Heather Long mentioned, Sectors such as the restaurant, hotel and retail industries may not fully recover.
This contrasts with the flexibility of occupational roles in large cities, where countless workers have managed to keep their jobs and keep their productivity away from the offices. New research from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development finds continued growth in telecommuting jobs in London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid – an outcome whose ultimate effect increases the risks of “exacerbating urban inequality” in these capitals and other major metropolitan areas.
Besides inequality within countries, there are other gaps that are widening between transnational societies. The epidemic led to Deeper decline in global remittances – that is, the money that migrants brought back to their countries of origin – compared to the 2009 financial crisis. This phenomenon varies from country to country, as countries such as Mexico, India, and China buck this trend. But, overall, analysts expect potentially dire consequences in the coming months for countries whose economies are highly dependent on these cash flows.
The continuing decline in remittances “exposes these countries to an increased risk of exposure to financial crises that will only prolong their post-pandemic recovery period.” The Economic Information Unit warned in a new report. “If an emerging economy suffers from such a crisis, a financial contagion could arise and destabilize other developing countries.”
The ripple effects of the pandemic continue to cast a shadow, with tens of millions of people worldwide now in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Aid agencies are warning of an acute shortage of funds to meet an ever greater need.
at Message to the G7 leaders At the end of last month, many humanitarian organizations, UN agencies and anti-poverty activists were released He called the world’s rich countries To formulate a “new global agreement to better forecast, prepare and protect the world’s most vulnerable people from the great risks we face.”
“These days, if disasters take us by surprise, it is because we were not looking,” Mark Lowcock, the United Nations chief of humanitarian affairs and one of the signatories of the letter, said in a statement. “As the world faces the greatest challenge in a single generation, we all need to work smarter, not just harder.”
0 Comments