9 out of 10 people in poor countries are set to miss out on COVID-19 vaccine in 2021

‘A COVID-19 VACCINE MUST BE SEEN AS A GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD, A PEOPLE'S VACCINE’ UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES (GLOBAL VACCINE SUMMIT, 4 JUNE 2020). 

Science Succeeding But Solidarity Failing, Warns Secretary-General, Citing ‘Vaccine Vacuum’ in Poor Nations, as COVID-19 Death Toll Hits 2 Million

Our best chance of all staying safe is to ensure a COVID-19 vaccine is available for all as a global common good.

This will only be possible with a transformation in how vaccines are produced and distributed — pharmaceutical corporations must allow the COVID-19 vaccines to be produced as widely as possible by sharing their knowledge free from patents. Instead, they are protecting their monopolies and putting up barriers to restrict production and drive up prices, leaving us all in danger. No one company can produce enough for the whole world. So long as vaccine solutions are kept under lock and key, there won’t be enough to go around. We need a People’s Vaccine, not a profit vaccine.

Covid-19 and Sustainability

Sustainability is the concept of maintaining equitable conditions across not only socioeconomic and geographic barriers, but also across generations and through time. Sustainability seeks to demonstrate that there is a way for society to progress and prosper in harmony with the planet. It’s about maintaining a healthy balance between people and the environment.

The coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19 has infected over two million people in more than 160 countries. The rising death counts are heartbreaking, and the fact that we can’t even go through the customary funeral rituals to help us heal emotionally has made the crisis that much harder for many of us. We’re also feeling the economic impacts of the pandemic, with unemployment rates climbing, the financial markets indicating a global recession and small businesses being forced to close in a number of areas. While dealing with my own losses and self-isolation, as a graduate student in Columbia’s Sustainability Science program, I can’t help but notice the parallels between what this virus is doing to us and what we’ve been doing to our planet.