A full year after the first indications that mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 would be highly effective and safe, the world is now reeling from even more dangerous variants of the virus. What does that say about us, particularly in the wealthy Global North?
BERKELEY – The world is facing two disasters that are making the COVID-19 crisis doubly worse than it ought to be. The first is the rise of the Delta variant, which is twice as contagious and 1.5-2 times deadlier than the original coronavirus. The second disaster is that Global North governments have not committed the resources to increase vaccine production to the scale needed to immunize the global population by the end of this year. Worse, the longer we drag our feet, the more likely that the immunity furnished by vaccines and previous COVID-19 infections will begin to erode.
BERKELEY – The world is facing two disasters that are making the COVID-19 crisis doubly worse than it ought to be. The first is the rise of the Delta variant, which is twice as contagious and 1.5-2 times deadlier than the original coronavirus. The second disaster is that Global North governments have not committed the resources to increase vaccine production to the scale needed to immunize the global population by the end of this year. Worse, the longer we drag our feet, the more likely that the immunity furnished by vaccines and previous COVID-19 infections will begin to erode.