Richer countries must wake up and see the bigger Covid picture

The statistics are stark and shaming. During an exasperated intervention earlier this week, the World Health Organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, pointed out that of 4.8bn Covid vaccine doses delivered around the world to date, around 75% have gone to just 10 countries. The level of vaccine donations from richer countries, he added with some understatement, has been “really disappointing”. In Africa, where a third wave of the virus has been on the march since May, less than 2% of the continent’s population has received a first dose. While high-income countries across the globe have administered around 100 doses for every 100 citizens, the equivalent figure for low-income countries is 1.5.

As a consequence, while the United States, Britain and other richer nations begin to roll out programmes for booster shots in the autumn, a pandemic of the unvaccinated continues unabated elsewhere. The WHO’s target of reaching 10% of the population of every country with a first shot by the end of September is unlikely to be met. This grotesque inequity, as Mr Ghebreyesus and others have repeatedly pointed out, is ultimately in no one’s interest. Allowing much of the planet to operate as a variant factory, and the more transmissible Delta variant to run riot, stores up trouble for the future. “Vaccinating the world” should therefore be seen as sound strategy as well as an ethical obligation. But, in Europe and North America, early good intentions have so far come a distant second to domestic priorities.