Worrying signs of a vaccine trade war

What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday we ran an investigation by Eugene Bingham talking to experts who warned New Zealand about covid complacency.

We had been weeks without a case of community transmission at that time. But within 24 hours we had news of a woman who tested positive after leaving managed isolation at the Pullman Hotel.

So far it looks like we’ve avoided the worst-case scenario of further community transmission. All the known cases appear to have contracted the virus at the Pullman. Testing is yet to throw up a community case, though we’ve all spent much of the week muttering ‘‘touch wood’’.

But, as Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield noted earlier in the week, it’s too soon to exhale just yet.

Thousands of people will be converging on Northland this week for Waitangi Day celebrations, for instance. It would potentially take only one case of community transmission to infect hundreds.

It’s a reminder that until the world is vaccinated, we will continue to walk a tightrope between the two worlds of Covid; the world where life goes on as normal, and the other when life comes to a shuddering stop.

So it is alarming that vaccines appear to be increasingly at the forefront of a new trade war, where nationalism threatens to override the public interest.

When our Government announced last year it had secured enough doses to protect New Zealanders, it claimed we were at the front of the queue. Whether that was true at the time, it is clear now, as many of the world’s rich countries vaccinate their populations, that we are certainly not first in line. The delivery of our first vaccines could be anywhere between weeks and months away.

The Government’s explanation seems to be that we shouldn’t be selfishly taking up vaccines meant for countries that are in the grip of the pandemic.

But that was just as true when it announced the vaccine deal as it is now. So while it might appeal to Kiwis’ intrinsically compassionate nature, it sounds more like a soothing bed-time story than cold, hard reality. It’s unlikely, for instance, that when offered a shipment of vaccines our Government magnanimously waved big pharma back and told them to give it to more deserving countries first.

The reality is that governments around the world face huge domestic pressure and there is a scramble under way to hoard vaccines.

The latest move by the European Union to limit the export of vaccines outside the EU is a further worrying escalation of the ugly protectionism that has erupted.

We are being buffeted by those forces, as are many other smaller countries.

The Government last night issued a statement that it was urgently seeking clarification of the EU move and what it might mean for our own vaccine supplies.

Let’s hope it gets some answers soon and that there is less politicking – on all sides – in the interests of greater transparency.

Until the world is vaccinated, we will continue to walk a tightrope between the two worlds of Covid.