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Pressing COVID-19 situation urges world to rethink priorities: think tank
CGTN
A health worker prepares a vaccine at the FF Robeiro Clinic at Sammy Marks Square vaccination site in Pretoria, South Africa, May 25, 2021. /CFP

A health worker prepares a vaccine at the FF Robeiro Clinic at Sammy Marks Square vaccination site in Pretoria, South Africa, May 25, 2021. /CFP

COVID-19 is the 21 century's Chernobyl moment - a catastrophe so significant it forces us to wake up and rethink our priorities, according to an opinion piece recently published by a pan-European think tank.

Lip service and inaction of some countries have "exacerbated inequalities and undermined the effectiveness of the pandemic response," David McNair, executive director for global policy at the ONE campaign, a global movement campaigning to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030, commented in the article published on the website of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

"And yet, throughout the crisis, the piecemeal nature of the United States' and the European Union's engagement with the rest of the world has fallen far short of the commitment now needed," he wrote in the article.

While the United States has vaccinated half its population and is considering calling up children for their shots, frontline health workers and the elderly and infirm in Africa may have to wait until 2022, he wrote.

According to ONE's COVID-19 Africa tracker data, rich countries have hoarded 1.3 billion doses more than they need, with 80 percent of doses having been administered in high-income and upper-middle-income countries, compared to just 0.4 percent in low-income countries.

As a result, there could be a worsening situation with twice as many total deaths from COVID-19 due to a monopoly of first doses of vaccines by rich countries, he wrote.

Economically, the IMF has warned of a "great divergence." High-income countries will recover to 4.3 percent growth in 2021 while in many African countries a return to 2019 economic growth levels will not occur until 2022-24, he added.

The director mentioned China's efforts in the global pandemic fight. "China has exported more vaccines than all other countries put together; the Chinese foreign ministry announced recently that the country is providing free vaccines to 69 countries and is selling them to 28 more."

He urged the United States, the European Union and Britain to "commit now to share surplus doses and fully fund the WHO's Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and COVAX," and called for "a major economic stimulus package" worldwide.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency

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