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Politics

La política de una vacuna contra el COVID-19

Jul 14, 2020 Richard Haass

NUEVA YORK – El daño global generado por la pandemia del COVID-19 es enorme: se perdieron más de medio millón de vidas, cientos de millones de personas se quedaron sin trabajo y se destruyeron billones de dólares de riqueza. Y la enfermedad no ha cedido en absoluto; cientos de miles más de personas todavía podrían morir a causa de ella.

Naturalmente, existe un profundo interés en el desarrollo de una vacuna. Ya se están llevando a cabo más de cien esfuerzos en todo el mundo. Varios parecen prometedores, y uno o más de uno pueden arrojar frutos –posiblemente antes de los varios años o más que normalmente se tarda en producir una vacuna.

Pero aún si surgen una o más vacunas que prometan que la gente sea menos susceptible al COVID-19, el problema de salud pública no se eliminará. Como dirá cualquier experto médico, las vacunas no son una panacea. Son sólo una herramienta en el arsenal médico.

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Richard Haass

Writing for PS since 2000
162 Commentaries

Richard Haass, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior counselor at Centerview Partners, previously served as Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department (2001-03), and was President George W. Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland and Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. He is the author of The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens (Penguin Press, 2023) and the weekly Substack newsletter Home & Away.

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gamaliel enriquez Jul 17, 2020

I’m with Richard Haass on this one. In particular, I agree with Mr. Haass that “vaccine nationalism is almost certain to win out over vaccine multilateralism,” as there are plenty of examples in “recent history [ which ] reinforces this skepticism. COVID-19 emerged in China and quickly became a worldwide problem. Responses, though, have been mostly along national lines.” Yet the reality is that COVID-19 does not respect “national lines” therefore if the global economy is to survive after COVID-19 I believe that we must go further than Mr. Haass’ proposal which is that “governments, companies, and nongovernmental organizations need to come together quickly, be it in the COVAX initiative, under the auspices of the United Nations or the G20, or somewhere else. Global governance comes in all shapes and sizes. What is essential is that it comes. The lives of millions, the economic welfare of billions, and social stability everywhere hang in the balance.” I therefore propose, what Jeffrey Sachs, Naomi Klein, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and increasingly Joe Biden are calling for which is a New Green Deal at a local, state, national and international level. The New Green Deal should be multistrategic to tackle not only COVID-19 but the Climate Emergency the Planet faces particularly since there is growing consensus that COVID-19 is a result of our Climate Emergency by working multilaterally in a vertical and horizontal way to create millions of jobs and transition the world to sustainable energy. Because we are all in this together.
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Michael Yeadon Jul 16, 2020

I am struck yet again by the extent of the catastrophising there is on every aspect of response to this virus. In all heavily infected countries in which the virus has been endemic for a few months, a clear peak & steady decay in number of daily deaths has occurred. In no such example has there been even a hint of notable reversals to disturb this relentlessly downward path. This has continued despite massed demonstrations, crowds at beaches & other location which ‘social distancing’ has at best been observed in the beach, and following lifting of so-called lockdown.
If we can protect most of the most vulnerable people (the elderly and/or already ill plus special populations like those on immunosuppressant drugs) this virus is not an outstanding risk to public health. These individuals should in my view be offered first dibs on a suitable vaccine.
I regret that there appears to be limited international cooperation. For example, there have literally been scores of independent attempts to accurately estimate infection fatality rate. If we could develop consensus on this key value or range of values, we would be much closer to establishing how close each nation or region is to herd immunity.
Why there is such evident panic & measures adopted actual countries with diverse prior responses to death? While at first these were arguably a net benefit, there seems little doubt that now, the effect of such measures is a profoundly net negative.
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