Why COVID-19 Vaccination Will be as Much of a Struggle as Fighting the Virus
COVID-19 vaccines have been all the rage across the globe since January. We will have one eventually, to be sure, but how we get there and how it gets used will be equally important questions. Image.
Amidst the unceasing din of 2020, the world is still looking for a win against COVID-19 as we continue to lose thousands each day. A core of vaccine trials, recently advancing to Phase 3, offer hope for critically needed respite within the next year. Yet their success and accessibility will be determined by questions of international politics, equitable and moral programming, and Godspeed.
Traditional timelines forecast ten years to develop a vaccine, with the fastest developed being the vaccine for mumps -- in four years. Nonetheless, human-will transcends known capabilities when faced with crisis. There are several vaccine programs on track to shatter the four year development record. Of them, there are three among some which look most promising: Pfizer, Novavax and Sinopharm.
Sinopharm, state-run by the Chinese government, has already been used in emergency cases in China and approved for emergency use in the United Arab Emirates. In the U.S., the New York Times reports Pfizer landed a $1.95 billion contract from the government, as its early results show an immune response 1.8-2.8 times that of recovered patients. Novax also received a contract -- $1.6 billion -- from the U.S government as part of Operation Warp Speed, as Novavax reports their trials have yielded an immune response four to six times greater than recovered patients, and tested a population size larger than Pfizer’s. And all three programs just entered the most crucial phase for vaccine trials -- Phase 3. Before being approved for public use, the vaccines will have to pass, in addition to other standards, the threshold of 50% vaccine efficacy. October will be most telling of the timeline for when we can expect a vaccine, as programs release the results of their Phase 3 trials.
COVID-19 Vaccination trial progress. Several companies, including Pfizer in the US, will be releasing Phase 3 results this month. Graphic: NYT.
Yet, brushing aside questions of a COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness and instead imagining the day when it’s ready, equally perturbing questions fill the void. At the global level, world leaders are at an unparalleled crossroads brought about by our age of globalization. Do they focus solely on getting the vaccine to the citizens of their nation, or will countries share vaccine supplies with other countries at the expense of less protection for their own? This prompts the redefinition of communitarian ideals and forces nations to reconstitute who qualifies as being with us. If there is a precipitating lesson from the pandemic, it’s that unity, or the lack thereof, will define our success. We are challenged to become an interwoven global community as never seen before.
But, as evidenced by attempts from China to spy on vaccine research being conducted on U.S university campuses, national self-interest continues to erect barriers of indifference between the different sects of the world. The needle points toward countries focusing on sharing vaccine supplies with their allies and leveraging medical breakthroughs to disadvantage their political rivals, possibly coercing them into economic and trade concessions in return for vaccine supplies -- a sinister reality. Lost in this will undoubtedly be middle and low class nations, who have to rely on the will of the world order yet don’t carry the political clout to hold their attention in times like these.
Even so, at the national level we are met with the most elemental question: Which persons should be selected to receive the vaccine? Arguments of moral desert will rage as calls for different causes will lobby for their own: frontline workers, high risk patients, communities of color, those who can’t afford health care, and more will be the debated-for groups. Almost certainly healthcare and frontline workers will be among the priority-select. Especially as most of the world has reopened, the functions that store employees, maintenance workers, custodians, EMTs and others are what keep our society running. They also work jobs that can’t be done from home, nor can most afford to. But what if we prioritized with them those who are among the least likely to suffer complications from the virus?
As CNN reports, children and young adults are “superspreaders” of the COVID-19. It’s evident that, short of going back to a complete shutdown, we cannot stop college students and young adults from breaking social distance guidelines. So, let’s take the moral quandary of self-regulation and social abstinence out of their hands by inoculating them with the vaccine. This would hopefully prevent the spread of the virus by stunting its growth in its largest breeding bloc. It may also open up the opportunity for children and teenagers to physically interact safely in school, which is instrumental for their psychological development. Faculty members at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Southern California are urging for vaccine distributors to prioritize vaccinating the virus’ “biggest transmitters.” The best way to protect high risk and immune-compromised people is to stop the virus from spreading, even if they aren’t the ones receiving the vaccine.
In the greatest challenge the modern world has met, COVID-19 may indeed engender us to raze our divides and tether ourselves to one another around the world. A vaccine will not be the magic bullet that ends COVID-19, and it will certainly test our compassion amongst each other as nations jockey for vaccine supplies and debates arise over how and who to distribute it to. Furthermore, in the U.S, the Friedman-esque industrial approach with vaccine companies casts doubt over the quality of any vaccine so hastily produced. But, it is when instability reigns and the collective human soul fraying that history has proven we will unify and overcome -- reaching the other side.