Hoarding vaccines is not in our interests
IT does not respect national borders nor recognise any types of boundaries.
It does not distinguish between people, whatever their background, skin colour, gender, age or nationality.
The current global pandemic is, therefore, a world problem and will not be solved by just protecting ourselves.
Vaccination can help to reduce the incidence and symptoms of the coronavirus, but, unless there is a worldwide vaccination programme, new variants will flourish and continue to affect us all.
Is it acceptable or morally justifiable, therefore, that rich countries like the United Kingdom should buy up and horde most of the vaccines, just because they can afford to?
Is it fair that, while the United Kingdom has now double vaccinated around 80% of its adult population, the 30 poorest countries in the world have vaccinated only around 2%?
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, the figure is just 0.1% and in Haiti it is just 0.24%.
Furthermore, despite the global shortages of vaccines, richer countries are stockpiling spare doses.
The United Kingdom, for example, has around 200 million excess doses.
Is it right, given these huge inequalities, that we should now be considering giving booster jabs to everyone and inoculating all children over 12 when the benefits may only be marginal?
Until we recognise that the pandemic is a global issue and that all countries require a fair share of the vaccine, we will never solve the problem. We live today in one small, interdependent world, where we all need to help each other, wherever and however we live. To quote my Sunday newspaper: “Selfishness is not just harmful to other people, it may not even be in one’s own selfinterest.” Cllr Dr David Ellis Llantwit Major