While the world is still dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter van Bergeijk investigates some of the major themes on preparations for the next pandemic. He argues for global health care and a major global investment project to reduce vulnerability to and the impact of pandemics.
He argues that vaccines have not been the gamechanger people hoped for. Although it is both important and encouraging that vaccines against the coronavirus have been developed at warp speed and that the world vaccination rate has surpassed 60%, more is needed for COVID-19 to become endemic and to avoid a future pandemic.
Many countries in the Global North have significant subcultures that distrust authorities and for religious or other reasons do not want to be vaccinated. At the same time, many people in the Global South that would like to be vaccinated still have not had the opportunity to get a vaccine. The emergence of the omicron variant is a strong reminder that the vaccination record is no reason for complacency but rather an additional reason to think about the future.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that international economic organizations suffered from disaster myopia and that the self-image of the advanced economies is distorted. It has also become apparent that ‘beggar-thy-neighbor’ health care was generally practiced while global health care should have been the norm.
A discussion on the related issues of rationing, triage and scarcity of health care during a pandemic is urgently needed. All in all, a major global investment project is necessary to reduce the vulnerability to and impact of pandemics. As inequalities to a large extent determine pandemic vulnerability, an adjustment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)is necessary.
Read the article online - 'The political economy of the next pandemic' Review of Economic Analysis (14) 2022.
- Professor