Vaccines for the world: charity or self-interest?

Nobody is safe until everybody is safe. Relative safety would require having 40 per cent of the world’s population vaccinated by January, and 60 per cent by mid-2022—at a total cost, according to the International Monetary Fund, of around $50-billion.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, centre, pictured June 11, 2021, host of the G7 Leaders Summit in Carbis Bay, U.K., with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, France's President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and European Council President Charles Michel. The billion doses promised by the G7 for mid-2022 just don’t cut it, and even an extra billion from China is not enough. Two doses each for five billion people is what’s needed. Or we can choose to live with the killer variants instead, writes Gwynne Dyer. Photograph courtesy of Flickr/Simon Dawson/No. 10 Downing Street

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

June 21, 2021

LONDON, U.K.—At the recent G7 summit, U.S. President Joe Biden promised to distribute 500 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines free to the poorer countries by the middle of next year. That’s more than a drop in the bucket, but not much more. A tablespoon in the bucket, perhaps. And the other six ...

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