Analysis: "If your country develops the vaccine before anyone else, immediately exporting it to another country is not a vote-winner," one expert said.
LONDON — The coronavirus crosses borders without regard for national boundaries or identities. But the response to it, and the hunt for a vaccine, has been caught up in a tide of nationalism that was already sweeping the world before the virus hit, and may end up delaying distribution of a vaccine to billions of people.
This tension between nationalism and internationalism was illustrated at a virtual summit hosted by the European Union last week. It was far from the first time Trump has demonstrated his lack of interest in multilateralism. He has openly criticized the founding principles of NATO, branded the E.U. a competitor and slapped its goods with billions of dollars in tariffs, and once told the United Nations General Assembly that"we reject the ideology of globalism."
The most promising trial in China is funded by the government. And a far more nationalistic approach was set out in an op-ed article published by the Global Times, the country's hawkish state-run newspaper, which according to its editor publishes what Communist Party officials privately think but don't say publicly.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that any vaccine"won't belong to anybody," and that those who discover it"will be fairly paid, but access will be given to people across the globe." Like many bioethicists, Kass said it's understandable for citizens to expect first access to drugs developed and manufactured on their soil, particularly at a time of chronic anxiety.
"Drugs are usually valuable because they decrease mortality," he said,"not because they have the power to stop the unemployment rate hitting 20 percent, like this one might."
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