Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Deciding Who Gets a Covid Vaccine First
Many, including the American president, believe that a vaccine for Covid-19 is on the way in a matter of weeks. Weeks, months, or years, the creation of a vaccine is not the end of the struggle anymore than creating a weapon that works in the lab ends a war. The thing must be deployed in huge quantities, and the production bottlenecks will make it necessary to prioritize who gets the shot or shots first. Science suggests medical staff globally should be first in line because they are the most exposed as well as the most valuable individuals in the fight. Politics will interfere and send the vaccine to old people in the rich countries at the expense of doctors and nurses in poor nations. As a result, the global response will fall far short of optimum.
The important thing to remember is that vacccines are not 100% effective. Some come quite close. Small pox was eradicated (except in a couple of research labs) with a vaccine that was 95% effective. The eradication took about 200 years. In short, even when a vaccine works well, it takes time to get the job done. The world will have Covid-19 concerns for years even after a vaccine is ready.
The disease, like all plague before it, does not respect national boundaries or other man-made barriers to its spread. One human host is just as good as another. Because the risk is to everyone on the planet, the ideal response would be a unifiend planetary one. Medical staff in the hot spots should be first, followed by medical staff elsewhere. After they are protected, the most at risk non-medical people should be vaccinated. The third bunch should be people whose professions require a great deal of face-to-face interaction.
Nations have banded together to develop and later distribute a vaccine. The BBC reports, "At least 80 rich nations and economies, so far, have signed up to the global vaccine plan known as Covax, which aims to raise $2bn (£1.52bn) by the end of 2020 to help buy and fairly distribute a drug worldwide. The US, which wants to leave the WHO, is not one of them."
The Beeb also noted, "With COVID-19 vaccines we want things to be different," says Gavi's CEO Dr Seth Berkley. "If only the wealthiest countries in the world are protected, then international trade, commerce and society as a whole will continue to be hit hard as the pandemic continues to rage across the globe."
The Gavi plan itself is flawed in that it it recognizes international boundaries and members versus non-members in its distribution. The members will all receive enough doses for 3% of their population -- which would be enough to cover health and social care workers. As the production ramps up, they will receive enough to cover 20% of the population – enough for the over 65s and some other vulnerable people.
So one expects a situation where some people in a hot spot do not receive priority over people elsewhere because the the latter have not had their full allocation. Politically, contractually and even morally, one can defend this arrangement. However, the virus will burn hottest where it chooses to burn.
Most troubling of all is the idea that some countries, the poorest members of the human race, will not receive any vaccines at all. These people will continue to suffer the worst of the virus while the rest of the world starts returning to whatever normal is going to be. But worse, they become a reservoir where the virus can live, and mutate.
It is likely that the first vaccine will not be more effective than 60%. It is also likely that the immunity provided will not last a lifetime; more shots will be needed as the years go by. The distribution systems established has to be a durable, long-lived one. Based on what the nations of the world are doing, it is going to be a slapdash Rube Goldberg device. And that will cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
© Copyright 2020 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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