1) Explain how vaccine nationalism is against a foundation for understanding societal values such as equity and social justice during these trying times. 2) What are fair and equitable way to distribute COVID-19 vaccines? Should each nation distribute the vaccines to its own population or should distribution be global?
The coronavirus pandemic has destroyed livelihoods and claimed the lives of more than two million people worldwide. Thus far, richer countries have been able to buy far more COVID-19 vaccines than poor ones. The battle over the vaccine raises deeper ethical questions about who deserves a priority access to a life-saving drug. Vaccine nationalism has been in the spotlight since vaccine rollout started in early 2021. Vaccine nationalism occurs when governments sign agreements with pharmaceutical companies to supply their own populations with vaccines ahead of them
becoming available for other countries. Wealthy countries who have stockpiled exceedingly large number of doses far outweigh the needs of their populations. For example, UK has secured a portfolio of 407 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in order to vaccinate its population of around 68 million. Meanwhile, many developing countries have to depend on philanthropic efforts such as the COVAX scheme which has been designed to equitably distribute 2 billion COVID-19 vaccines by the end of
2021.
Tasks:
1) Explain how vaccine nationalism is against a foundation for understanding societal values such as equity and social justice
during these trying times.
2) What are fair and equitable way to distribute COVID-19 vaccines? Should each nation distribute the vaccines to its own
population or should distribution be global? If distribution is global, what values and criteria ought to govern the
distribution?
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