To Promote Social Democracy Globally, Export Vaccines

WITH COVID-19 VACCINATIONS well underway in the United States, national attention has largely shifted away from supply concerns. On a global scale, however, vaccine access remains a massive problem. As of September 2021, only 2% of adults in low-income countries had been fully vaccinated, compared with 50% in high-income countries. Only about 4 in 100 Africans had received all required doses.

The deplorable character of this state of affairs, which many have labeled as vaccine apartheid, need not be repeated. It does not make sense from a public health perspective; it is bad for US foreign policy goals; and it implicates American society into yet another chapter of human suffering worldwide. There is also something genuinely sinister about how quickly vaccinated countries have normalized other countries’ lack of access to vaccines.