They envy my office, but I can’t wait to leave
Ilove a harbour. Tomorrow night the old wharfs of Auckland, Wellington and even across in Sydney will be packed with people, jollier than jolly, celebrating the last week before Christmas. They’ll be office-types, who started trickling out around midday for lunch meetings that never stopped, but the ale will no doubt taste just as good for the boaties arriving in Picton or the crafty folk at Oamaru’s Scotts Brewing. We’ve a lot to celebrate here, with a stellar summer ahead after a difficult year.
That we can flock to bars and travel to family Christmases at all indicates we are in quite a lucky position. But I’m worried about those stuck in the throes of a never-ending winter.
The US and UK got their first Covid-19 vaccines this week, instilling some hope that the global pandemic is reaching its end. This appears to be wishful thinking. The vaccine has arrived in the US as Covid-19 infection rates reach record highs. CNN reported seven straight days of record hospitalisations due to Covid-19 in the US. With crowds ignoring advice about gatherings, mask use and travel, Christmas could well prove deadly for many more in America.
And even though there is a vaccine, it’s no silver bullet. Its rollout is a tricky, costly exercise. The Pfizer jab has to be held at minus 70 degrees Celsius, and its Moderna counterpart at -20. The delivery of these vaccines across the US involves priority planes, special freezer trucks, and extensive and expensive planning. Experts want to be able to reach priority groups – hospital workers and the elderly – in the first instance, but they also don’t want vaccines to expire while they wait.
Meanwhile, it’s estimated that poorer countries will not be able to get vaccination cover until 2023.
A global alliance of pretty much every country, except the US and Russia, is working together to buy and distribute vaccines equitably across the world. But outside that alliance, Duke Global Health Innovation Centre notes that high-income nations are pouring more money into buying vaccines.
Those nations, such as Canada, the UK,
Australia, and the EU have secured 4 billion doses. Lower-middle-income nations, just one billion. Remember, India has a population of one billion on its own and is dealing with one of the most severe and deadly outbreaks of Covid-19. Johns Hopkins University reported 443,000 active cases in India, after 144,000 deaths during the pandemic.
The issues in the US, Europe and India are not insurmountable. The BBC’s India correspondent, Soutik Biswas, notes that India has proven itself a ‘‘powerhouse’’ of vaccination. It is helped, of course, by the fact it houses a dozen major pharmaceutical manufacturers.
The Indian Government plans to vaccinate 500 million by July 2021, but there are concerns that wealthy nations could snap up too many vaccines too early, despite not needing them. In a worst-case scenario, these vaccines could go to waste as they expire quickly.
Amnesty International says, currently, the richest 14 per cent of nations have bought 53 per cent of the most promising vaccine stocks.
A system like this will never be perfect, but from our relatively privileged position of having no Covid outbreak, New Zealand must advocate for a needs-based distribution of the vaccine.
Oxfam’s health policy manager, Anna Marriott, says production of the vaccines needs to be scaled up. But to do this, the companies with the right recipes and technology would need to share with others. ‘‘Unless something changes dramatically, billions of people around the world will not receive a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 for years.’’
This isn’t a particularly merry note to end on, with my last column before Christmas.
And it isn’t just the poor nations that are struggling this holiday season. Earlier in the week, it came home to me just how crazy is the situation we’ve found ourselves in. I started the day early, with a video interview to a man in Stockholm, Sweden. In the early days of the pandemic, people wrongly used Sweden as an example of why we did not need to lock down to stop the spread. Since then, 7500 people have died and a second wave is now taking hold.
A commission of inquiry into the Swedish Government’s handling of the pandemic said it was to blame for the virus infecting rest homes and overwhelming hospitals.
I saw a sort of confusion, and then longing, on the face of the man I spoke to. First, he realised that the sterile white walls behind me were, indeed, an office. Then, he spoke of missing – of all things – working in the office. It was 7pm in Stockholm, and already pitch black. He was speaking to me in the same room he has done everything in, every day, since the pandemic began. And of all things, he said he missed just a plain old office.
But I was sick of the office, and headed down to the waterfront asap.
From our relatively privileged position of having no Covid outbreak, New Zealand must advocate for a needsbased distribution of the vaccine.