Yves here. It should come as no surprise that the key Biden Administration measures to tackle climate change, carbon taxes and accelerating the conversion to electric vehicles, are tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unfortunately, being honest about the degree of lifestyle and economic changes needed to avert the worst climate outcomes is a political career limiting move. And the sad thing is that people assume that sacrifice means misery. Despite her parents losing 97% of their savings and their house to the Great Depression, my mother does not recall it as a bad period: “People pulled together and helped each other.”
Morals and the vaccine market
May 04,2021 - Last updated at May 04,2021
ITHACA As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic outstrips the severity of the first, a clear global bifurcation is emerging. The pandemic is abating, gradually and unevenly, across richer countries, but flaring up in several developing and emerging economies, most notably India, but also to varying degrees in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, the Philippines, Ethiopia and Kenya.
There are many reasons for this divide, but uneven access to healthcare particularly the glaring inequity in access to COVID-19 vaccines is impossible to ignore. On January 18, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, noted that more than 39 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries. By contrast, he said, “Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income country. Not 25 million; not 25 thousand; just 25.”
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Commentary: Glaring vaccine gaps across the world are too big to ignore Many hoped the pandemic would end proprietary science and patent-based market monopolies. That hope has since faded, says Kaushik Basu.
FILE PHOTO: A health worker prepares a dose of the Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac) vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Tecnopolis Park, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 15, 2021. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian
05 May 2021 06:10AM) Share this content
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ITHACA, New York: As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic outstrips the severity of the first, a clear global bifurcation is emerging.
May 3, 2021
ITHACA, New York – As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic outstrips the severity of the first, a clear global bifurcation is emerging. The pandemic is abating, gradually and unevenly, across richer countries, but flaring up in several developing and emerging economies, most notably India, but also to varying degrees in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
There are many reasons for this divide, but uneven access to health care particularly the glaring inequity in access to COVID-19 vaccines is impossible to ignore. On Jan. 18, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, noted that more than 39 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries. By contrast, he said, “Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income country. Not 25 million; not 25 thousand; just 25.”