HBR | For those who believe that a vaccine for Covid-19 will end or largely
contain this pandemic or who hope that new drugs will be discovered to
combat its effects, there is plenty cause for concern. Instead of
working together to craft and implement a global strategy, a growing
number of countries are taking a “my nation first” approach to
developing and distributing potential vaccines or other pharmaceutical
treatments.
This “vaccine nationalism” is not only morally reprehensible, it is
the wrong way to reduce transmission globally. And global transmission
matters: If countries with a large number of cases lag in obtaining the
vaccine and other medicines, the disease will continue to disrupt global supply chains and, as a result, economies around the world.
In the midst of this global pandemic, we must leverage our global
governance bodies to allocate, distribute, and verify the delivery of
the Covid 19 vaccine. We need the science — not politics — to inform the
global strategy.
Experts in epidemiology, virology, and the social sciences — not
politicians — should take the lead in devising and implementing
science-based strategies to reduce the risks that Covid-19 poses to the
most vulnerable across the globe and to reduce transmission of this
novel virus for all of us. To avoid ineffective nationalistic responses,
we need a centralized, trusted governance system to ensure the
appropriate flow of capital, information, and supplies.
