The Omicron shame

Helping Africa in its critical fight against the [Covid-19] pandemic should have been done in a more systematic fashion as part of an inclusive global strategy. Alas, little of that has transpired. From the very start, rich countries like the US, European states, China and Japan had provided financial packages to keep their economies afloat.

At times, they provided direct financial support to all of their citizens to make up for the rising unemployment and prolonged closures. Africa, due to pre-existing global inequality and widespread poverty, could not afford such luxuries. Worse, African countries were the last to receive life-saving vaccines.

Instead, the access to vaccines in Africa was perceived as a form of charity, relegated to a discussion pertaining to the kindness and goodwill of rich Western countries. Disappointingly, the main counter-measure to the deep inequalities, which placed Africa at its current economic disadvantage in the first place, was represented by the COVAX program, sponsored by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), World Health Organization (WHO) and the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), among other charities.

COVAX, which was launched in April 2020, was triumphantly described as an effective platform ‘to accelerate the development and manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines, and guarantee fair and equitable access for every country’.

Twenty months later, one can effortlessly observe that COVAX failed in its mission to provide poor and developing countries with protection from the pandemic. This is not a judgment on the structure, conduct or sincerity of COVAX, but an indictment on those who insist that one can apply the same standards of economic and social exploitation on a deadly pandemic that does not differentiate between race, nationality or class.

“As richer countries roll out booster shots, 98 percent of people in low-income countries remain unvaccinated. Covax […] has contributed just 5 percent of all vaccines administered globally and recently announced it would miss its 2 billion target for 2021,” Rosa Furneaux and Olivia Goldhill wrote in a recent article published in Quartz.

According to data published by Reuters, in Lesotho – one of the African countries targeted by the new travel bans – only 14.5 percent of the total population is fully vaccinated. Zimbabwe and Botswana are only a few steps ahead, with percentages of 22.6 and 29.4 respectively, still quite far from the target herd immunity threshold that was initially estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent of the population.

Nearly two years have lapsed since the Covid pandemic struck, yet the world insists on facing a global crisis with nationalistic and politically-driven solutions. The fact that we continue to struggle against the virus and its variants indicates that the traditional thinking has completely failed. For the pandemic to be finally defeated, we need to abandon the mindset of rich vs. poor and north vs. south. For the world to be saved, all of us have to be saved collectively.

Excerpted: ‘The Omicron Shame: Why is the World Punishing Instead of Helping Africa?’

Courtesy: Counterpunch.org