It was ironic that this week’s meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva was cancelled becausomicre Switzerland has put a ban on travel from Africa, not to mention ski holiday arrivals from the UK.
The WTO was due to discuss patent protections on Covid19 vaccines. This is a case in which the urgent argument that matters is not between virtue and vice but a deeply political conflict involving varying forms of self-interest. It is a debate which merits more attention.
Arguably, the WTO has it within its power to speed vaccination of the southern hemisphere by suspending patent protection. This is resisted by the pharmaceutical companies which prefer to hang onto the exclusivity – and riches - their investment has brought them.
The EU and UK have so far backed big pharma. A counter-argument is that the industry depends so strongly on patent protection that the precedent would threaten investment. Germany maintains that "the limiting factors in the production of vaccines are capacities and high quality standards, not patents”.
Back in May, the Biden administration reversed its predecessor’s hostility. For its trouble, it was condemned by the industry for “an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety.” So the argument goes on – and it is a very old one, domestically and internationally.
It is possible to see both sides, which is why debate is necessary and interesting. Like many others, I might well not be here if it was not for the speed with which vaccines were created and rolled-out. It would be glib to assume this would have happened without the protections which big pharma seeks to defend; just as it would be naïve to accept everything they assert.
In our own country, ever since the NHS was created, the role of the pharmaceutical industry has been contested. On one hand, it is a powerhouse of innovation and triumph over disease. On the other, it makes huge profits. The uneasy compromise lies in time limits before much cheaper, generic products can enter the market.
The same quandary is played out internationally but with Covid19 delay equates to danger, and not just for the vaccine-deprived. Viruses travel fast and without regard to borders. However achieved, the need is for more vaccines and the question is really about how, in practice, that is best achieved.
The new director general of the WTO is a former Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who has been trying to navigate a way through these deeply conflicting positions. That’s a tough job but if the Omicron variant does no other good, it has brought into sharp focus the inter-dependence from which there is no escape, rich or poor, north or south. Never were John Donne’s great words more relevant: “No man is an island entire of itself…”.
At a more prosaic level, we are inundated with opinions about what Omicron might mean. It is more transmissible but not necessarily more severe seems to be the consensus. Maybe even less severe is the hope. It will be weeks till we know more. So in meantime, take extra care and wear a face mask. But don’t cancel plans for Christmas.
As always, difference can be exaggerated. I was on both London underground and the Glasgow subway last week and levels of mask wearing were pretty similar, about two-thirds. I don’t think many really know “the law” as opposed to “the advice”. In both settings, there were constant announcements urging mask-wearing so decisions on whether or not to do so were personal.
Until we know differently, the best defence is through vaccination, not excessive restrictions which are probably unenforceable. Is there an intellectual or moral conflict between saying we should all be doubly or trebly vaccinated when the vaccination rate in some poor countries is still in single digits? If so, it is not one we can address at a personal level.
The moral obligation may be to argue, vote and work for a fairer world but in the meantime, the imperative is to protect others as well as one’s self. We cannot directly influence what happens in the WTO but we can certainly ease pressures on the NHS by the relatively simple means of vaccination.
Travel restrictions currently proposed seem to me proportionate. You can’t really correlate “take care but have a normal Christmas” as I heard Professor Jason Leitch advise with “isolate everyone coming into the country for eight days” as Nicola Sturgeon is urging.
For many, that would mean cancellation, not normality. At least we have moved on from setting different travel rules which even Ms Sturgeon has belatedly recognised as “ineffective” for reasons that were always obvious – people go via Manchester instead. Let’s stay “proportionate” till we know what we are dealing with.
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