Vaccine Nationalism Is Doomed to Fail
After nearly a year of waging a “war” on the coronavirus, many countries are poised to declare victory. Britain, which today became the first country to roll out the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, dubbed the start of its immunization program “V-Day,” echoing the language used to commemorate its win in World War II. Elsewhere, China and Russia have already begun distributing their own state-backed vaccines for domestic use. And although the United States has yet to grant regulatory approval to any of the vaccine candidates, Donald Trump was quick to claim the spate of positive vaccine news as his own.
Many of these vaccines, and the ongoing trials for potential alternatives, have benefited from huge levels of government investment—much of it coming from wealthy countries determined to secure their spot at the front of the line for when the vaccines were reserved before any had been approved for use, with many countries claiming enough to inoculate their population several times over.
