The only frustrating thing is how clearly it's been highlighted that the rich and powerful countries get all the vaccines and we'll only get them here once everyone in the west has been vaccinated three times over.
> EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the bloc will not share coronavirus vaccines with other countries until it has "a better production situation in the EU." This is reported by DW.
https://112.international/politics/eu-wont-share-covid-vacci...
The EU did. For a year. And now it doesn't, since the UK and USA do not.
The first vaccine only came out about 4 months ago.
However, you are right - the EU has donated about 30 million doses, enough for 15 million people. It's not nothing, but not that much either.
> Overall, 77 million doses have been shipped from the European Union since early December, 88 million will have been distributed internally by the end of the week, and 62 million shots have been administered within the bloc, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/covid-vaccines-e...
The EU tried to play nice and it was screwed over by other countries and by AstraZeneca.
If you look at the numbers, the EU exported almost as many vaccines as it used, while its vaccination rate was half the UK/US one.
they did, then stopped to plan the production, so they can share more later, that makes 100% sense and seems to be the best strategy to vaccinate everyone safely
Saying "no they don't" is mostly a lie and is unfair to say, such a simplistic sentence that hides the real intentions
The EU on the other hand keeps seizing vaccines produced for other countries.
Citation needed. I've not heard about this at all.
If you promise to deliver you better do, or don't produce the product in there and ship it elsewhere.
One can only be ashamed about the state of things. There are NGOs which try to help, but this is clearly not enough. And it is dumb, too - we will not get rid of the virus until all countries work together and help each other. It is a global issue, and our leaders do not have half enough brain to understand that.
Basically handing money out to NGO’s so they generate headlines as helping and not the US government for the time being.
> The administration stressed that the globally-focused funds will have no impact on the U.S. domestic vaccination program.
Island territories are clearly easier to control movement to and from, but that is not the ony factor.
And, of course, China. Again, if reports are to be believed.
As for Africa, yeah, there's probably major undereporting.
It wouldn't surprise me to see a several-multiples underreporting, largely based on limitations of available diagnostic testing as of a year ago, but I'd doubt it's the 10x -- 20x (or far worse) underreporting seen elsewhere.
East and Southeast Asia generally (you report in another comment you're in Vietnam), along with Australia/New Zealand, have been the standout success stories in the Covid story so far. This runs strongly against early expectations and narratives, and has been pretty fascinating to watch.
I've seen and called out underreporting in Iran (last March--April) and Turkey (last October--November), previously, each of which saw case counts revised sharply upwards within days or weeks. In both cases based on deaths vs. cases, which is one of the more reliable indications of underreporting. I've also noted Sweden's very long lags (up to 2--3 weeks) in simply compiling case and deaths data, which tended to understate the severity of the runaway growth in the October--November period last year.
(Discussions of all of this in my Joindiaspora posts, these are hard to search.)
Deaths lagging cases by 14--21 days means that strong demonstration of underreporting via deaths data often only comes after the situation's gotten sharply out of hand. We're seeing cases of thirtyfold growth of cases in Thailand (over the course of three weeks) and India (since mid-Feburary). The problem with pandemics is that given increased transmission rates, cases can take off tremendously in a very short time period, something various denialists and critics seem to pointedly fail to grasp. (No, I'm not accusing you of that here, though there are clearly some matching that description posting in this thread.)
You do know that East Asia has been hit several times by local epidemics (for example SARS) and that people have gotten used - based on previous government recommendations/mandates - to wear masks? That same culture used to people wearing masks is obviously helping now.
Governments can't completely control a virus, but they can definitely help curb its spread by taking effective measures. And one of that measures is effective communication, for example.
The response of most Western governments have been shambolic: here in the UK the government didn't start doing widespread randomised COVID tests until August, and even when they did the results covered such a big area that were practically useless.
For most of 2020 we simultaneously received news similar to "South Korea locks down this district of Seoul after a lot of people tested positive for COVID in a party last night" and "the UK government is considering a country-wide lockdown in the next few weeks because the amount of people being treated for COVID in hospitals". The difference in prevention infrastructure and planning were embarrassing.
Shipment of AstraZenca to Vietnam has started already. Wikipedia says 60m doses ordered "Including 30 million donated by COVAX Facility. Produced by SK Bioscience (South Korea)"
Shouldn't countries that developed vaccines should take care of their citizens first?
"Which approach leads to the least dead people globally?" is another potential way of looking at things.
In India's case it was one of the first places to be licensed to make the AstraZenca vaccine, I think at no cost. The Serum Institute there, the world's largest vaccine producer, was the first place to start producing vaccine in quantity. I'm not sure you can really blame the west here. Though recently the US have been blocking supplies which I hope is a temporary glitch.
Vaccinations have ramped up in ways no one has every seen in history. And lots of lessons were learnt during the first few waves from all the blundering that happened. Nothing is static and predictable about systems that learn and change from day to day. Stick that on your Fridge. And re-examine how your prediction is doing next month.
In South Africa for instance, COVID-19 killed more people in 2020 than HIV/AIDS or TB.
In all likelyhood COVID-19 will go the way of the spanish flu (with or without vaccination only changes the time it takes) and become less of a problem due to partial immunity in the population. Most children will get it once, after which any reinfection by a similar strain will be mostly harmless.
So COVID-19 will maybe continue to be a problem for 3 or 4 years, but after that we will still be stuck with HIV, TB and others, where the outlook is not so rosy.
Generally, HIV is "solved" by a lifelong treatment with antiretrovirals. Those are not free of side-effects, very expensive and not available everywhere. In many places in less-developed countries, antiretrovirals are simply unaffordable for those affected. And even if they are affordable, the recurrent cost of the drugs keeps them in a lifelong state of poverty and dependency. Society as a whole may finance those drugs, but at the cost of other necessary things of course. Also, some countries try to produce those drugs themselves on the cheap, getting them into hot water with the western patent lobby and preventing trade agreements and the like, damaging their economy.
And the epidemic itself is still ongoing, sometimes even fueled by infected people no longer caring, due to the availability of antiretrovirals that render AIDS "harmless".
All in all, HIV is still spreading, is still not cured, treatment is problematic and it still wreaks havoc. Maybe only a little less.
Any mention of this tends to bring on "how dare you say one life is more valuable than another" downvotes, but since this thread is considering economic impact, it's a relevant factor.
In the developed world. Are you sure that this is true in Africa?
Because if someone already has HIV or TBC, I can imagine Covid giving him the final push, even though the patient is only 35.
I know that I lived my life from 18-24 without any global pandemic lockdowns and both "contemplated" suicide at different points and used substances to cope with stress. I'd assume many others did as well.
Given that we know suicides didn't go up in 2020 the way the fearmongers said they would (they went down), what are you arguing for?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
And of course, cumulatively many more "life years" would be lost in a no-lockdown world.
But the real tragedy is you thinking stopping a real, deadly disease that affects millions of people isn't worth it because of a completely preventable death.
Sebastian Rushworth did an interesting article on this, pointing out that it is likely wrong.
https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/11/29/how-many-years-of-...
My google fu is failing me when I search for it though, so I would very much appreciate a link.
"Epidemiologische Studien zeigen, dass etwa zehn Prozent der ambulanten Patienten nach sechs Monaten unter Long Covid leiden. Von diesen Patienten sind wiederum zehn Prozent vom chronischen Fatigue-Syndrom betroffen, schätzen Wissenschaftler. "
At least the cited scientist is easy to Google, so you could ask her directly for the studies: https://solvecfs.org/carmen-scheibenbogen/
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-suicides-have-dec...
Fully one fifth of South Africa's COVID-19 deaths were in the 50-59 age bracket, which includes many key experienced and highly-skilled personnel.
Another ten percent were between 40 and 49.
Sure, 44% of those who died were 60+ but to assume that had less economic impact is also incorrect: In the most hard-hit areas many of the primary caregivers for children are in that age group as grandparents who were forced to care for their grandchildren after AIDS wiped out so many of their children. COVID-19 has now left many kids double-orphaned, first with the deaths of their parents from AIDS and now the deaths of their grandparents from COVID-19.
TB, AIDs and poor sanitation are killers, and more deadly.
but with the exception of a cholera outbreak, they are chronic. That is, take a long time.
Covid is acute and causes services to be overwhelmed, which causes higher mortality for everyone.
What do you mean by "less developed" ? Those people have been with us on earth for the very same period of time as any other human. So they have been developing themselves culturally, economically, whatever-ally as much as any other human.