[Editorial] Until vaccine inequity is addressed, none of us is safe
The Omicron variant is a reminder of the immense difficulty of responding to a global crisis at the level of individual countries
Travelers wearing personal protective clothing arrive at Incheon International Airport on Monday morning. (Yonhap News)
Posted on : Nov.30,2021
The world is under attack from Omicron, the 13th major variant of the COVID-19 virus and the fifth to be designated as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO). While Korea and other countries have hurried to place travel restrictions on the country where Omicron was discovered and its neighbors, the variant had already spread to 13 countries in five continents as of Monday — not even three weeks since it was first reported on Nov. 11.
The variant’s rapid transmission means it’s probably only a matter of time before it spreads around the entire world. This is a fresh and vivid reminder of the immense difficulty of responding to a global pandemic at the level of individual countries.
Just as with the other viral variants, Omicron first appeared in a low-income country: Botswana, in southern Africa. Low-income countries have less access to COVID-19 vaccines. While high-income countries have reached a full vaccination rate of more than 60% and are already moving on to booster shots, the full vaccination rate in the entirety of Africa has barely reached 7%. The partial vaccination rate – which includes those who’ve only received one vaccine dose — isn’t much higher, at 11%. The WHO and other groups have warned for some time now that these largely unvaccinated low-income countries are breeding grounds for viral variants and will become the epicenter of the global COVID-19 crisis.
In that sense, it’s no exaggeration to say that the Omicron crisis is the result of disregarding vaccine inequity. This crisis is due to major countries’ overemphasis on their economic interests and their selfish hoarding of vaccines in the face of something that not only appeals to our sense of universal togetherness but could also endanger us all — wealthy or otherwise — at any time.
This past September, the top health officials of G20 member countries signed the “Rome Pact” that called for developing countries to receive a fair supply of COVID-19 vaccines. But such declarations of “vaccine equity” are belied by the fact that vaccines supplied through the COVAX Facility, a collective vaccine purchasing project for developing countries, haven’t even reached 70% of its goal.
Global stock markets have been rattled by Omicron, even as the stocks of Pfizer and other vaccine makers have spiked. That’s an example of how untrammeled economic logic can backfire on the economy, as well as how pharmaceutical firms’ monopoly on profit can clash with the interests of the economic ecosystem as a whole.
Intellectuals across the world have called for temporarily suspending patents on COVID-19 vaccines. In July 2020, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and seven other world leaders ran an opinion piece in the Washington Post that began with the message, “None of us is safe until all of us are safe.” The time has come for our leaders to put words into action with bold decision-making.
The world is under attack from Omicron, the 13th major variant of the COVID-19 virus and the fifth to be designated as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO). While Korea and other countries have hurried to place travel restrictions on the country where Omicron was discovered and its neighbors, the variant had already spread to 13 countries in five continents as of Monday — not even three weeks since it was first reported on Nov. 11.
The variant’s rapid transmission means it’s probably only a matter of time before it spreads around the entire world. This is a fresh and vivid reminder of the immense difficulty of responding to a global pandemic at the level of individual countries.
Just as with the other viral variants, Omicron first appeared in a low-income country: Botswana, in southern Africa. Low-income countries have less access to COVID-19 vaccines. While high-income countries have reached a full vaccination rate of more than 60% and are already moving on to booster shots, the full vaccination rate in the entirety of Africa has barely reached 7%. The partial vaccination rate – which includes those who’ve only received one vaccine dose — isn’t much higher, at 11%. The WHO and other groups have warned for some time now that these largely unvaccinated low-income countries are breeding grounds for viral variants and will become the epicenter of the global COVID-19 crisis.
In that sense, it’s no exaggeration to say that the Omicron crisis is the result of disregarding vaccine inequity. This crisis is due to major countries’ overemphasis on their economic interests and their selfish hoarding of vaccines in the face of something that not only appeals to our sense of universal togetherness but could also endanger us all — wealthy or otherwise — at any time.
This past September, the top health officials of G20 member countries signed the “Rome Pact” that called for developing countries to receive a fair supply of COVID-19 vaccines. But such declarations of “vaccine equity” are belied by the fact that vaccines supplied through the COVAX Facility, a collective vaccine purchasing project for developing countries, haven’t even reached 70% of its goal.
Global stock markets have been rattled by Omicron, even as the stocks of Pfizer and other vaccine makers have spiked. That’s an example of how untrammeled economic logic can backfire on the economy, as well as how pharmaceutical firms’ monopoly on profit can clash with the interests of the economic ecosystem as a whole.
Intellectuals across the world have called for temporarily suspending patents on COVID-19 vaccines. In July 2020, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and seven other world leaders ran an opinion piece in the Washington Post that began with the message, “None of us is safe until all of us are safe.” The time has come for our leaders to put words into action with bold decision-making.
Omicron variant emerges at worst moment, a consequence of vaccine inequity
The new variant, coupled with the onset of winter and waning vaccine effectiveness, is prompting concerns over increased spread
As countries tighten restrictions in order to block the spread of the Omicron variant, travelers wait to be tested for COVID-19 at Munich Airport on Saturday. (EPA/Yonhap News)
Posted on : Nov.29,2021
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which was first detected in southern Africa, has now been spotted in European countries including the UK and Germany, prompting a global panic over the new viral strain. This turn of events is fueling criticisms that the world won’t be rid of the COVID-19 pandemic until developing countries receive their fair share of vaccines.
While it’s still unclear how dangerous Omicron will be, the variant has cropped up at a very bad time. Europe was already dealing with its worst wave of COVID-19, and people in the Northern Hemisphere are staying indoors as winter sets in. In addition, around six months have passed since the world’s major countries vaccinated their populations, meaning that vaccine efficacy may be waning. That’s raising the risk that the world will enter another phase of lockdowns.
Experts say that unless vaccine inequity in developing countries is addressed, variants could continue to emerge and place the whole world at risk.
The new variant’s spread
After being detected for the first time in Botswana, South Africa and Hong Kong on Thursday, the Omicron variant was also identified in Israel and Belgium on Friday. The next set of countries to spot the variant included the UK, Germany and Israel, Reuters reported on Saturday.
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Saturday that two people who had entered the country from southern Africa were infected with Omicron. The public health authority of the German state of Bavaria also said it had detected the variant in two people who had arrived from southern Africa on Wednesday.]
The Italian authorities identified Omicron in a tourist visiting Milan from Mozambique, and in the Czech Republic, a tourist from Namibia tested positive for the variant.
Thus far, almost all cases of the Omicron variant in areas outside of southern Africa have been in travelers arriving from there except for cases in Hong Kong. The variant has been detected in two people in Hong Kong: a tourist who was apparently infected while visiting South Africa and a tourist from another region who had been in quarantine at the same hotel. This second tourist may have been infected with Omicron through the air of the hotel, Hong Kong disease control officials were quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
People in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has been detected the most, wait to be tested for COVID-19 on Saturday. (AP/Yonhap News)
Back to stricter countermeasures
The UK and Israel were the first of many countries to ban travelers coming from southern Africa and stiffen disease control restrictions at home. The UK, where many had assumed they’d be spending a normal Christmas holiday season, issued a mask mandate on Saturday. Starting next week, masks will be mandatory for shoppers and transit riders, and all tourists arriving from overseas will have to be tested for COVID-19, the BBC reported.
Israel, which had already slapped a travel ban on southern Africa, said it will be barring all foreign tourists for the next two weeks, Reuters reported on Sunday. That makes Israel the first country to close its national borders to keep Omicron at bay. So far, most countries are only placing restrictions on southern Africa, but border controls are expected to be tightened if the number of Omicron cases increases.
The worst time for a new variant to emerge
It’s still unclear how much danger Omicron presents compared to other COVID-19 viral variants, including Delta. Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first warned public health authorities about the Omicron variant, told British daily newspaper the Telegraph in an interview on Saturday that the symptoms of patients with Omicron “were so different and so mild from those I had treated before.”
Coetzee noted that one young person had reported extreme fatigue and that a six-year-old had dealt with a fever and a high pulse rate, but was much better after two days.
The problem is that Omicron has appeared at the worst possible time. A new wave of COVID-19 that began in eastern Europe has blazed across the continent to Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, driving Austria to implement a full lockdown on Nov. 22. The situation in Europe is serious, with citizens in the Netherlands and other places launching violent protests against the tougher disease control restrictions.
The fact that the number of cases is once again on the rise as the Northern Hemisphere enters winter — when more activities take place indoors — is another reason that Omicron is prompting concern. According to figures from the World Health Organization, the weekly global caseload in early October was over 2.82 million, which was the lowest since late June. But by the middle of November, the weekly caseload had increased 34% to over 3.78 million.
Another troubling factor is that four to six months have passed since many countries inoculated much of their populations this summer, suggesting that immunity may now be diminishing. According to Our World in Data, an international statistics website, the daily vaccination uptake rate around the world increased steadily to 0.54 per 100 population on July 27. The rate then faltered a little until rising to a similar level at the end of August. But since then, inoculations have slowed once again, with the rate falling to 0.37 on Friday.
Vaccine inequity rears its head
The fact that Omicron appeared in southern Africa, with its low vaccination rate, is prompting more criticism about advanced countries’ monopoly on vaccines. Critics point out that developing countries’ worsening public health environment and inability to gain immunity to COVID-19 because of a vaccine shortage engender conditions in which new viral variants will continue to emerge.
“While we still need to know more about Omicron, we do know that as long as large portions of the world’s population are unvaccinated, variants will continue to appear, and the pandemic will continue to be prolonged,” Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said in a statement quoted by Reuters.
“We will only prevent variants from emerging if we are able to protect all of the world’s population, not just the wealthy parts.”
An AP report quoted Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the UK’s University of Southampton, as saying, “This is one of the consequences of the inequity in vaccine rollouts and why the grabbing of surplus vaccines by richer countries will inevitably rebound on us all at some point.”
That’s what happened with the Delta variant, which was first detected in India. Delta built up momentum as it created the worst COVID-19 wave that India had seen in April and May before becoming a global juggernaut.
As of Wednesday, Botswana — where Omicron is believed to have first appeared — had only vaccinated 19.6% of its population. In neighboring South Africa, where Omicron is currently spreading, just 23.7% of the population have been fully vaccinated.
In the case of South Africa, at least, some note that the low vaccination rate is due more to vaccine hesitancy than to a shortage of vaccines. Public hesitancy prompted the South African government to ask Pfizer to delay its supply of vaccines on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
By Shin Gi-sub, senior staff writer
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
The new variant, coupled with the onset of winter and waning vaccine effectiveness, is prompting concerns over increased spread
As countries tighten restrictions in order to block the spread of the Omicron variant, travelers wait to be tested for COVID-19 at Munich Airport on Saturday. (EPA/Yonhap News)
Posted on : Nov.29,2021
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which was first detected in southern Africa, has now been spotted in European countries including the UK and Germany, prompting a global panic over the new viral strain. This turn of events is fueling criticisms that the world won’t be rid of the COVID-19 pandemic until developing countries receive their fair share of vaccines.
While it’s still unclear how dangerous Omicron will be, the variant has cropped up at a very bad time. Europe was already dealing with its worst wave of COVID-19, and people in the Northern Hemisphere are staying indoors as winter sets in. In addition, around six months have passed since the world’s major countries vaccinated their populations, meaning that vaccine efficacy may be waning. That’s raising the risk that the world will enter another phase of lockdowns.
Experts say that unless vaccine inequity in developing countries is addressed, variants could continue to emerge and place the whole world at risk.
The new variant’s spread
After being detected for the first time in Botswana, South Africa and Hong Kong on Thursday, the Omicron variant was also identified in Israel and Belgium on Friday. The next set of countries to spot the variant included the UK, Germany and Israel, Reuters reported on Saturday.
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Saturday that two people who had entered the country from southern Africa were infected with Omicron. The public health authority of the German state of Bavaria also said it had detected the variant in two people who had arrived from southern Africa on Wednesday.]
The Italian authorities identified Omicron in a tourist visiting Milan from Mozambique, and in the Czech Republic, a tourist from Namibia tested positive for the variant.
Thus far, almost all cases of the Omicron variant in areas outside of southern Africa have been in travelers arriving from there except for cases in Hong Kong. The variant has been detected in two people in Hong Kong: a tourist who was apparently infected while visiting South Africa and a tourist from another region who had been in quarantine at the same hotel. This second tourist may have been infected with Omicron through the air of the hotel, Hong Kong disease control officials were quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
People in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has been detected the most, wait to be tested for COVID-19 on Saturday. (AP/Yonhap News)
Back to stricter countermeasures
The UK and Israel were the first of many countries to ban travelers coming from southern Africa and stiffen disease control restrictions at home. The UK, where many had assumed they’d be spending a normal Christmas holiday season, issued a mask mandate on Saturday. Starting next week, masks will be mandatory for shoppers and transit riders, and all tourists arriving from overseas will have to be tested for COVID-19, the BBC reported.
Israel, which had already slapped a travel ban on southern Africa, said it will be barring all foreign tourists for the next two weeks, Reuters reported on Sunday. That makes Israel the first country to close its national borders to keep Omicron at bay. So far, most countries are only placing restrictions on southern Africa, but border controls are expected to be tightened if the number of Omicron cases increases.
The worst time for a new variant to emerge
It’s still unclear how much danger Omicron presents compared to other COVID-19 viral variants, including Delta. Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first warned public health authorities about the Omicron variant, told British daily newspaper the Telegraph in an interview on Saturday that the symptoms of patients with Omicron “were so different and so mild from those I had treated before.”
Coetzee noted that one young person had reported extreme fatigue and that a six-year-old had dealt with a fever and a high pulse rate, but was much better after two days.
The problem is that Omicron has appeared at the worst possible time. A new wave of COVID-19 that began in eastern Europe has blazed across the continent to Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, driving Austria to implement a full lockdown on Nov. 22. The situation in Europe is serious, with citizens in the Netherlands and other places launching violent protests against the tougher disease control restrictions.
The fact that the number of cases is once again on the rise as the Northern Hemisphere enters winter — when more activities take place indoors — is another reason that Omicron is prompting concern. According to figures from the World Health Organization, the weekly global caseload in early October was over 2.82 million, which was the lowest since late June. But by the middle of November, the weekly caseload had increased 34% to over 3.78 million.
Another troubling factor is that four to six months have passed since many countries inoculated much of their populations this summer, suggesting that immunity may now be diminishing. According to Our World in Data, an international statistics website, the daily vaccination uptake rate around the world increased steadily to 0.54 per 100 population on July 27. The rate then faltered a little until rising to a similar level at the end of August. But since then, inoculations have slowed once again, with the rate falling to 0.37 on Friday.
Vaccine inequity rears its head
The fact that Omicron appeared in southern Africa, with its low vaccination rate, is prompting more criticism about advanced countries’ monopoly on vaccines. Critics point out that developing countries’ worsening public health environment and inability to gain immunity to COVID-19 because of a vaccine shortage engender conditions in which new viral variants will continue to emerge.
“While we still need to know more about Omicron, we do know that as long as large portions of the world’s population are unvaccinated, variants will continue to appear, and the pandemic will continue to be prolonged,” Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said in a statement quoted by Reuters.
“We will only prevent variants from emerging if we are able to protect all of the world’s population, not just the wealthy parts.”
An AP report quoted Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the UK’s University of Southampton, as saying, “This is one of the consequences of the inequity in vaccine rollouts and why the grabbing of surplus vaccines by richer countries will inevitably rebound on us all at some point.”
That’s what happened with the Delta variant, which was first detected in India. Delta built up momentum as it created the worst COVID-19 wave that India had seen in April and May before becoming a global juggernaut.
As of Wednesday, Botswana — where Omicron is believed to have first appeared — had only vaccinated 19.6% of its population. In neighboring South Africa, where Omicron is currently spreading, just 23.7% of the population have been fully vaccinated.
In the case of South Africa, at least, some note that the low vaccination rate is due more to vaccine hesitancy than to a shortage of vaccines. Public hesitancy prompted the South African government to ask Pfizer to delay its supply of vaccines on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
By Shin Gi-sub, senior staff writer
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
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