Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his government’s plans to end the confinement decreed since Christmas time. It will be a gradual opening, in stages. From the return to schools, on March 8, until the removal of the restrictions that today impede social life and have paralyzed many sectors of the economy, on June 21: “freedom day”, reported the Financial Times.
Faced with the rays of light at the end of what is still a long tunnel, the respite has been general. Thanks to the good successes of the vaccination program, in particular its accelerated rate of coverage, we would walk, in Johnson’s words, on “a one-way street to freedom.”
There are good reasons for hope. And it is up to every government to motivate social optimism. But it is also important to note the need to be cautious – the gradual nature of the plan confirms this. Furthermore, enthusiasm for early triumphs against COVID-19 may need to subside.
The response of the so-called developed world has been to vaccinate their own as soon as possible and close borders. It is urgent to accelerate global vaccination programs, reinforcing initiatives such as Covax.
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‘It’s Going Global’ was the headline on the cover of The Economist in the edition that began to circulate almost a year ago (on February 29, twelve months ago). The virus had already hit hard in Italy, in Lombardy, where the authorities had ordered the closure of a good number of sites to avoid agglomerations. But most of the attention remained focused on China. The International Health Organization was still examining whether to declare the pandemic.
What followed is history. And when that story is written with the serenity that only the passage of time, the eyes will turn to that great incongruity of wanting to bring down an evil of global dimensions with national strategies (not to say nationalist).
The path traveled by vaccines demonstrates this, despite the examples of the scientific community, which from the beginning of the crisis pointed out the path of international collaboration necessary to move forward. Its results are in sight: in record time, humanity today has several vaccines that seem effective.
The achievements of the scientific community must be countered by political failures in a world that prided itself on globalization, the notable absence of international leadership (see Philip Ball’s essay in New Statesman, 23/10/2020).
The virus, meanwhile, continues to send messages with challenges: there are its variants, mutations in South Africa, Brazil, the United Kingdom, which threaten to decrease the effectiveness of vaccines. What to do?
An understandable and reasonable answer in the short term. But unless it is believed possible to live in “autarchies”, as the Financial Times, the successes of such national strategies will be limited.
It is therefore urgent to accelerate global vaccination programs, reinforcing initiatives such as Covax, which promote access to vaccines in poor countries. As the Financial TimesThere are moral reasons for doing so, although there are also economic interests that rich countries may understand better.
Just think of the tourism industry – on which one in ten jobs in the world depend and more than 4 percent of the GDP of OECD members (The Economist, 02/13/2021) -. For some countries, in southern Europe and across the vast geography of underdevelopment, the effects of the coronavirus on tourism have been devastating.
Without global triumphs, those celebrations of freedom in times of pandemic seem somewhat premature.
Eduardo Posada Carbo
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