Headline, December 19 2020/ !WOW! : ''' '' PEOPLES' VACCINE ALLIANCE '' '''

!WOW! : ''' ''PEOPLES'

VACCINE ALLIANCE '' '''

RICH VACCINE - POOR VACCINE : GROUPS LIKE the People's Vaccine Alliance and The World Students Society, - most lovingly and respectfully called !WOW! - have -

Have long been lobbying emphatically for Covid-19 vaccines to be made available to every human being !AND FREE!.

They have also been advocating against patenting vaccines that have been developed. Ensuring that there are no patents would mean that the most effective vaccines could be replicated at lower cost by developing countries and thus be available to a greater chunk of the global population.

In support of their propositions, the groups cite Jonas Salk, the scientist who developed the polio vaccine, who remarked putting a patent on the vaccine would be akin to putting a patent on the Sun.

IT IS FINALLY VACCINE TIME - AT LEAST in some places. A little over a week ago, the first person was vaccinated against Covid-19 in the United Kingdom.

This week, the United States began to vaccinate its own front-line healthcare workers. A great drama surrounded the rollout; cable news cameras were there to provide live feeds of the vaccine, which is produced by the Pfizer plant in Michigan, being loaded into two special refrigerated trucks.

One, a FedEx truck, would head to the American west and another a UPS truck, would head out to the east.

In and around the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain both began vaccinating their populations with another vaccine. The vaccine, called Sinopharm, is produced by a Chinese state-run company, and the approval of Arab nations is likely to go far in allowing the company to distribute its vaccines worldwide.

The demands certainly state how things should be, but it is not how things probably will be. Already, there are accusations that rich countries are hoarding the vaccine.

Predictably, President Donald Trump has insisted that all Americans be vaccinated first. Other countries may be less overt about their plans, but it is known that 96 percent of Pfizer vaccine and 100 percent of the Moderna vaccine have already been purchased by wealthy countries.

Canada has apparently purchased enough doses of the vaccine to vaccinate its population five times over.

There are 172 countries participating in the World Health Organization's COVAX initiatives which seeks to make the vaccine available to everyone. But COVAX, despite being much touted, has only been able to procure 250 million doses - far below the numbers purchased by some of the world's wealthiest countries.

In the Developing World, - to prevent chaos, all governments need to begin taking the following steps right away. First of all, it must be made clear which vaccine is being procured and what ongoing safety information is available concerning the trials of that vaccine.

Second, a public health initiative must be launched to create confidence in the vaccine. Third, when the vaccine does finally become available, all political leaders must take the vaccine publicly, in front of television cameras.

None of these things can happen unless the vaccine that is procured is well and widely tested. The worst possible way to go about this is for one vaccine to be procured for all the poor masses and then others made available for the wealthy who can afford better vaccines and are not limited to cheap public versions.

Sadly, if the past is any evidence, this is precisely how things will proceed.

MILLIONS have died from Covid-19, lives have been forever changed and opportunities have slipped away because of the virus. The measures of casualties from this horrid plague are enumerated in terms of those who have died, but the living also suffer hopelessly, not only from the long-standing side effects of this terrible disease nut from the impact on the society, economy and opportunity.

There is, of course, no vaccine to prevent further losses of these other kinds - which will have their own enduring impact on the generation coming of age in a world [rightly] terrified of touch, of being close, of getting together.

The arrival of vaccines is undoubtedly a hopeful event; less so is the fact that the vaccine disbursal will follow the usual global diagrams of wealth inequality, diplomatic relationships and access to healthcare in general.

There should not be a rich vaccine and a poor vaccine, but it is quite and quiet likely that this is exactly what will be, even as we are told that some vaccine is better than no vaccine at all.

The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Trials, Vaccines and Forward Integration to destroy Covid-19, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Professor Rafia Zakariya.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

''' Vaccine - Vectors '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless