Omicron coronavirus variant seen as a clarion call to vaccinate the globe
LOS ANGELES — For almost a year since COVID-19 vaccines first became available, many leading health authorities have urged wealthy nations and vaccine manufacturing companies to prioritize inoculating people in poorer Southern Hemisphere nations to help prevent troublesome new variants from emerging.
Since then, vaccines have become readily available in the United States, Western Europe and other developed areas of the world. But in Africa, where the new omicron coronavirus strain was first detected in recent days, vaccines remain extremely difficult to come by and just 7% of the population is fully inoculated, compared with 42% of the global population and 58% of the United States.
“With this level of
