Rich countries are to blame for the spread of the Omicron variant

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Joe Biden held a press conference on Monday to calm Americans concerned about the new omicron variant of covid-19, which the World Health Organization recently described as a “variant of concern.” First sequenced in a lab in South Africa, omicron is the second strain, after the now familiar delta, to be alarmed given its unique genetic profile. This is the kind of mutation that is incubated in places with particularly low vaccination rates. One way to deal with the ever-present threat of such mutations would be to ensure that more people have access to the vaccine around the world. Today, the richest 20 countries have received almost 90% of the world’s vaccine supply. But the immediate response from the United States was to recommend putting more hits on American guns and more money on American drug companies.

In his announcement, Biden vowed to “fight and beat this new variant,” urging Americans to receive their booster shots and noting that the administration has already contacted Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to “develop contingency plans. “if the three drug manufacturers have to develop new vaccines. As NPR reported, the companies are already testing new boosters and modifications for the inoculations they have developed, patented, and refused to share with less wealthy countries. Each day, rich countries provide six times more booster doses to their citizens than the first doses given in low-income countries. It is a “scandal that must end now,” said the director-general of the World Health Organization, just weeks before omicron stopped flights around the world.

Although conclusive data is scarce, studies are underway to determine the rate of transmission of the variant and the level of protection offered by current Covid-19 vaccines. But the fact of omicron’s new structure has prompted some governments to deploy familiar defenses, encircling wagons and protecting their own even as it has become clear that the issue of mutations is a truly global concern. Several countries have banned travel from South Africa and other African countries, a tactic of questionable effectiveness when used alone. And anyway, cases have already been recorded in Italy, Germany and Canada, among other countries: at least one person who had not traveled to Africa has tested positive, suggesting that the strain has already started its spread. community. All of this makes the idea of ​​simply quarantining a nation – where the variant was discovered, but not definitely incubated – slightly ludicrous. The travel bans themselves, as Zeynep Tufekci recently wrote, are “a scene of a pandemic, not of public health”.

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