Mary Wilson
Well-known member
Once Covid-19 shots become available, there will be arguments about who gets them, and an even bigger battle with anti-vaxxers who refuse them.
By Andreas Kluth July 8, 2020, 12:00 AM CDT
For most people, a vaccine against the coronavirus can’t come soon enough, as it will be the only tolerable way to achieve herd immunity. So it’s encouraging that more than 100 drug candidates in 12 countries are in development, and eight are already entering clinical trials. To accelerate the process, some people are heroically volunteering to expose themselves to infection.
And yet, there’s still a danger that humanity will fail in its quest to control Covid-19. The culprit wouldn’t necessarily be the medical complexity, fiendish as it is, of engineering a vaccine. It could also be the ensuing politics surrounding inoculation. The fights will be intense, irrational and sometimes nasty.
The first problem is that even after we become confident that a particular vaccine is effective and safe, there won’t be enough for everyone. So we’ll have to decide: Who should get the shots first? Who won’t get any? These questions will come up between countries, and within them.
Given the right leadership, the world would overcome these difficulties with dignity and wisdom. Forty years ago, for example, as the world shivered in a Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, humanity nonetheless managed to unite and eradicate smallpox.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...-twitter-view&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic
By Andreas Kluth July 8, 2020, 12:00 AM CDT
For most people, a vaccine against the coronavirus can’t come soon enough, as it will be the only tolerable way to achieve herd immunity. So it’s encouraging that more than 100 drug candidates in 12 countries are in development, and eight are already entering clinical trials. To accelerate the process, some people are heroically volunteering to expose themselves to infection.
And yet, there’s still a danger that humanity will fail in its quest to control Covid-19. The culprit wouldn’t necessarily be the medical complexity, fiendish as it is, of engineering a vaccine. It could also be the ensuing politics surrounding inoculation. The fights will be intense, irrational and sometimes nasty.
The first problem is that even after we become confident that a particular vaccine is effective and safe, there won’t be enough for everyone. So we’ll have to decide: Who should get the shots first? Who won’t get any? These questions will come up between countries, and within them.
Given the right leadership, the world would overcome these difficulties with dignity and wisdom. Forty years ago, for example, as the world shivered in a Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, humanity nonetheless managed to unite and eradicate smallpox.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...-twitter-view&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic
