On Thursday, Anthony Fauci informed the World Health Organization that the Biden government will participate in the WHO vaccine sharing project. This reverses President Donald Trump’s approach to America in the first place. Fauci says the objective is to guarantee “equitable access” to vaccines for all countries in the world, rich and poor.
Americans struggling to get vaccinated have the right to know how sharing doses with poor countries will affect their own ability to get vaccinated.
President Biden is under pressure from the public health community to share the vaccine supply that the United States previously purchased, even before all Americans who want injections receive them.
The vaccine sharing project, with the acronym COVAX, raises money to buy vaccines for poor countries, but also asks the wealthier countries to donate real doses. The COVAX dose sharing principles, launched on December 18, are causing controversy in France, England, Canada and other countries struggling to vaccinate their own populations. COVAX wants countries to share their doses as they receive them, rather than waiting to see what’s left. So far, Norway has agreed.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says it is unfair that younger, healthier adults in countries like the United States receive injections before the frail and elderly in poor countries. He calls this “catastrophic moral failure”.
Likewise, Kate Elder, of Doctors Without Borders, objects “if a healthy 20-year-old in New Jersey is vaccinated before a frontline health professional in South Sudan.”
Bruce Aylward, WHO adviser, says it is unacceptable for a country to vaccinate its entire population before offering doses to the most at-risk inhabitants of the poorest countries.
Duke University public health experts also argue that high-risk groups in poor countries should get the vaccine before the American public. A report by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center complains that rich countries are monopolizing initial supply.
Thursday’s White House statement on sharing the vaccine says the United States will obey as soon as there is “enough” supply here. What does “enough” mean? When only those most at risk are vaccinated, as globalists propose, or when vaccines are offered to all Americans? The public needs a clear answer to that question.
There are powerful reasons to oppose COVAX’s vaccine sharing principles.
First, US taxpayers poured billions into Operation Warp Speed to develop vaccines with the understanding that they would obtain a large share of the initial production. When Trump refused to join COVAX, The New York Times called the decision “vaccine nationalism”, but Americans desperate to be vaccinated are unlikely to be concerned with the politically correct.
Second, the United States is struggling to achieve collective immunity by summer, which scientists predict will require about 70% of the population to be vaccinated. The diversion of part of the vaccine supply to COVAX would jeopardize this objective.
On Monday, the International Chamber of Commerce joined the call for equitable distribution of vaccines, arguing that helping poor nations will benefit the economies of the rich. In the long run, it is true, but vaccinating a quarter of the population in each country, as proposed by COVAX, would require the United States and other developed countries to give up on returning to normal this year.
Third, as new virus variants emerge, vaccination becomes yet another race against the clock. Otherwise, a variant may appear that does not respond to the vaccine. Moderna announced Monday that its vaccine is slightly less effective against the recently identified South African variant. People may need annual reinforcements against emerging strains.
In the past two weeks, both the European Union and the United States have been hit by unexpected news about manufacturing setbacks. On Monday, the European Union threatened to ban AstraZeneca from exporting any dose until it fulfills its contractual obligations. The EU is putting its own people first.
This is a lesson for America. Vaccine-sharing decisions should not be left to public health “experts” whose globalist views are now on the rise in Washington, DC. Helping the world is important, but the United States must take care of its own first.
Betsy McCaughey is the author of “The Next Pandemic”.