‘If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry’ – John the Baptist, Luke 3:11
The news hit the day after Thanksgiving. As tens of millions of Americans rushed to stores and online to take advantage of Black Friday sales, the World Health Organization released news about the dreaded Omicron Variant. Stock markets plunged, travel restrictions were imposed, and supply lines came to a stand-still. Suddenly, the prospect of a post-Thanksgiving/holiday Covid surge took on dire new dimensions as people contemplated the news that the new variant boasts a ‘constellation of mutations’ that may enable it to evade both vaccine and natural immunity.
The jury is still out on just how bad this really is, so it is premature to panic. It may well be the case, one can hope, that this will turn out to be much ado about nothing. Nonetheless, the arrival of a new ‘variant of concern’ offers an opportunity to reflect on the world’s response to the pandemic, in particular the failure of the wealthier nations to share their vaccine blessedness with less affluent countries.
Omicron has its origins in South Africa, a nation with a relatively low vaccination rate (35%). Poorer African nations are more severely under-vaccinated. Nigeria, for example, has a rate of 1.7%. Ethiopia, 1.3%. The Democratic Republic of Congo is at 2.1%. The continent as a whole stands at around 4%, with poorer nations averaging, as the examples cited evidence, less than 2%.
And that’s just Africa. Poorer countries around the world are overwhelmingly unvaccinated.
As a Christian, I find this appalling, as I hope you do too. Two reasons, the first being basic fairness. John the Baptist’s observation about sharing clothing and food seems to apply to vaccines just as well. In wealthier nations, including the United States, we throw expired vaccines away every day. We have far more than we need (even if the persistently stubborn were to break down and take a needle, we would have plenty). Seven days ago, America reached the point where 36% of Americans had received a third dose of the vaccine. I myself am so boosted, a decision I weighed carefully, considering the very topic I am currently addressing. I decided to get the shot because they were abundant here in the states and, given the current state of vaccine hesitancy, would go bad if not used. It did pain me somewhat to know I was getting a third shot when hundreds of millions have yet to get one.
This widespread availability of the vaccine at home, and the receipt of boosters, is not necessarily a cause for hand wringing. Citizens of wealthier nations could, if we set our collective mind to it, provide more than enough vaccine for both ourselves and the world. I am no expert, and I am sure there are deep complexities involved, but two steps in particular seem in order. First, wealthier nations could simply create a Marshall-type plan on Covid and appropriate billions of dollars to the purchase and deployment of vaccines throughout the world. Second, the Pharmaceutical companies that created the available vaccines could release their patents, enabling vaccines to be developed at a faster pace throughout the world. Pope Francis called for such a step in October, calling on Pharmaceutical companies to ‘Make a gesture of humanity and allow every country, every people, every human being, to have access to the vaccines.’
‘Oh but we can’t spend our money distributing vaccines everywhere!’ I can hear some say. ‘We need to make sure we have enough vaccine to protect ourselves! Not everyone is vaccinated here. America first!’ Putting aside that Americans here have had plenty of time to get vaccinated, this argument is hollow, self-serving, and certainly contrary to the teachings of Jesus. I love the story of Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman in the Gospels. A foreigner came to Jesus asking for healing for her daughter. Jesus, knowing his disciples’ prejudices, initially put her off by saying he had come for the children of Israel, not outsiders, thereby revealing the ugliness of the disciples’ nationalist, ‘Israel first’ mentality. When she persisted in her pleas for help, Jesus delivered the woman’s daughter to wholeness. There are many lessons in the story, but among them is the realization that Jesus didn’t just offer ‘healthcare’ to those close to home. He made it available wherever it was needed.
As for the release of patents, I am sure that I (and the Pope) will be accused of naivete. Do you not understand the nature of the pharmaceutical industry? Or the precedent it would set for the future? Why should companies that invest millions, even billions, not be able to reap the rewards of their labor. To tamper with the invisible hand of the Pharmaceutical marketplace would be to denigrate capitalism. Well, in the first place, these vaccines were produced, at least in the United States (and I’m sure elsewhere) in part with public money, aka taxpayer dollars. And in the second place, this is a crisis moment in which millions of lives are at stake. If Big Pharma chooses profits over human lives at such a time as this, it will reveal the moral bankruptcy of its corporate soul and deserve whatever government encroachment on their turf ensues. As far as I’m concerned, if they will not release their patents voluntarily, they should be made to do so. Cries of socialism be damned.
The second reason I find the current state of vaccine disparity so appalling is this: it is not only morally wrong; it is galactically stupid. Failure to stop the spread of this mutating virus throughout the world means it will have more opportunities to metamorphose as it spreads, producing ever more variants of concern, each potentially more virulent than the last. We are flipping out over the Omicron variant at present. One wonders what happens by the time we get to the last letter of the Greek alphabet. The Omega variant might be one that lives up to its name, to the horror of us all.
The wealthier nations and the Pharmaceutical companies have a choice. We can do the right thing, save millions of lives, and in the process save ourselves. Or we can forsake the advice of John the Baptist to share, cling to what is ours, and watch the world descend into a chaos of our own making.
It’s time to listen to the Baptizer. It’s time to share. If we don’t, we may all live to regret it.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent