Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Since COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out in many rich countries at the beginning of this year and made widely available mid-way through, governments have largely painted this as a sign that the pandemic is winding down.

However, many governments had to back-track reopening plans after the Delta surge, coupled with vaccine refusal as well as evidence of waning immunity from prior infection or inoculation, showing that this framing was premature.

Another important problem, which has been widely mentioned by world health leaders for some time, is that if the virus is allowed to spread uninhibited anywhere in the world, it will mutate into a potentially more dangerous variant that could evade immunity granted by vaccination, be more deadly – or some combination of both.

This means that if vaccines are kept out of the hands of poorer countries, then variants could emerge that outmaneuver the global public health effort to this point. While a horrifying thought, this could now very well be the case soon.

On November 26, the World Health Organization (WHO) labeled the newly identified B.1.1.529 "Omicron" variant, first tracked in South Africa, a variant of concern. It has been described as the most "complex" and "worrying" variant so far and is quickly becoming dominant in areas where it is circulating.

What's so worrying about it is the fact that it has over 30 mutations to its spike protein alone. This protein essentially acts as a key to enter human cells, and our current vaccines are focused on identifying this in order to activate the body's immune response. The high amount of spike mutations in Omicron means our immune systems may not recognize it.

Inevitably, this could mean breakthrough infections – already a point of concern with the dominant Delta variant and evidence of waning immunity – become even more common, if not rendering existing vaccines useless. It also remains to be seen whether or not novelty means more severity, i.e. worse health outcomes, including death and hospitalization.

We are weeks out from having clear details about this new variant, but this situation was completely predictable and easily avoidable. World health leaders have warned consistently throughout the course of the pandemic that a situation like this could arise if vaccines are not spread equitably.

As former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in a column on this subject, rich countries are awash with vaccines – and even throwing excess supply away – while poorer countries are still waiting for their doses. He pointed out that G7 countries have only delivered 25 percent of the vaccines they promised to deliver to the 92 poorest countries, which was a promise made in June.

All told, only 3 percent of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated – meanwhile, over 60 percent of those in high-income and upper-middle-income countries are. And, again as Brown points out, it's not even because supply is strained or because there aren't manufacturing contracts, but because the global supply is monopolized by the world's richest countries.

Scientists and world health leaders have called for an all-out, warlike approach to combatting COVID-19, but wealthy countries have pursued vaccine nationalism instead. While this may score well politically and have the appearance of protecting the domestic population, this inevitably backfires in a huge way if new variants emerge in parts of the world with low immunity.

Omicron's emergence proves this, given that South Africa and its neighbors not only have dismally low vaccination rates, but also that Sub-Saharan Africa has high incidence rates of HIV/AIDS. Scientists believe that an immuno-compromised person, probably someone with AIDS, was the most likely route by which the virus was able to mutate into Omicron.

But even though this happened, it's certainly not too late to address it. With Delta, scientists took many weeks to identify what was behind India's terrible wave and by the time it was sequenced and traced, it had already gained a foothold across the world. South African scientists were thankfully able to sequence, trace and inform the world about Omicron extremely fast which gives serious hope that the situation can be controlled.

Governments must respond seriously to Omicron, control its spread and take more serious action to improve global health equity. This means, first of all, ramping up vaccine donations to poorer countries, not letting any go to waste and enhancing international cooperation on cross-border disease spread, which the special session of the World Health Assembly slated for November 29, provides the perfect opportunity for.

This situation bears repeating one simple mantra: "None of us are safe until all of us are safe."

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