Blog Post#5_Will Scott

 


With the COVID-19 pandemic still dominating the world, a recent class discussion about cosmopolitanism made me think about the pandemic and the unfair treatment that developing countries with a lack of medical infrastructure are having to deal with compared to first world countries. As human beings of the world, first world countries have the moral obligation to be providing vaccines, adequate testing, and other treatments for COVID-19 to countries that do not have the ability to obtain these things, yet for some reason, we are not doing it. 

At this stage in the pandemic, every American citizen who is older than five years old can receive their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and anyone twelve years of age can receive a booster shot if they please. Due to ignorance, we believe that this is normal, but many other countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, have less than ten percent of their population vaccinated. This is not because the people of these countries do not want to be vaccinated, it is because they do not have the opportunity to get the jab. For example, in northern Yemen, a low-income, war-torn country, people would have to drive around 15 hours across the country to get the shot, with no promise that it would actually be available to them. The reason that these countries are struggling to get their hands on the vaccine is that large, wealthy nations such as the United States are buying more doses than they actually need and that is extremely unjust and wrong. The word “pandemic” means a disease that is prevalent across the whole world which means that in order to combat this disease we must take a cosmopolitan approach, yet these larger countries refuse to do so which creates an enormous amount of inequality throughout the world.

The United States has administered around 576 million doses of the vaccine compared to the Democratic Republic of the Congo whose population has only received 1.16 million doses. This pandemic will not go away until wealthy governments start acting like cosmopolitans, because this is a global issue and we have the moral responsibility to help those who do not have the ability to get adequate help. 

                                 Citations

  1. Beaubien, Jason. “For the 36 Countries with the Lowest Vaccination Rates, Supply Isn't the Only Issue.” NPR, NPR, 14 Jan. 2022, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/14/1072188527/for-the-36-countries-with-the-lowest-vaccination-rates-supply-isnt-the-only-issu. 


  1. Randall, Tom, et al. “More Than 11.6 Billion Shots Given: Covid-19 Tracker.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/. 

Comments

  1. Laurel UtterbackMay 2, 2022 at 4:27 PM

    I found your post very interesting, and I wrote about something similar. Your post reminded me of a project that I completed last semester regarding the global politics of the vaccine divide. Much like you stated in your post, my research focused on how those in privileged countries were simply choosing whether or not to get the vaccine, whereas those in global south countries were not even given this choice because they didn't have access to one. It is extremely saddening that in a global pandemic, powerful countries pride themselves in creating third doses for vaccines when some countries can barely afford to purchase and distribute the first dose, especially in Africa, where now both COVID and malaria have drastically impacted the lives of the people there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matthew PaddockMay 4, 2022 at 7:15 PM

    I agree with your argument Will. This pandemic, which crosses borders, cultures and languages, requires nations to act in the best interests of all individuals. Until governments can collaborate and cooperate with each other to allocate necessary resources, the world will not return to "normal." More privileged nations can certainly spare vaccine stock to those who do not have enough and are in dire need. I truly hope that leaders will realize this and embrace a call to action with the goal of lending a helping hand.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Matthew Paddock Blog Post #2

Blog Post #2 In recent days, Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested the resolve of the United States and other Western powers after he officially recognized separatist regions of Ukraine and subsequently launched a full scale invasion. Though this move is a large gamble for Putin, I believe he is confident that the reward of a “successful” mission will certainly outweigh the potential risks including sanctions and international condemnation. While Putin has stated that he ordered military intervention to protect Russians from persecution, I disagree with this propagated notion that has virtually no corroborating evidence. Rather, I argue that Putin aims to upend the current liberal world order and transform the balance of power established between nations.  In the face of threats from rising powers including China, Russia, Iran, and others, the United States has still managed to remain the dominant global hegemon that always maintains an influential presence concerning inter...
Read more

Laurel Utterback Blog Post #2

President Putin is now facing a serious dilemma following his decision to order Russian troops to invade Ukraine after deciding to recognize the Donbas region, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk, as an independent. I strongly believe that ultimately, Putin will be faced with a choice of following his imperialistic agenda or listening to his crippled nation and economy that are facing the immediate impacts of the developing conflict. Just because the United States isn’t directly putting troops on the ground in Ukraine does not mean that sanctions are a less effective measure. In some ways, Putin is daring the West as he is continuing to order Russian troops to continue their route into Ukraine while the Russian economy has already started to tank, a trend that we have seen historically that I will elaborate on later in this post.   As we talked about in class, the impacts of necessary goods, such as oil and gas, are large gambles in the crisis. Germany took the first step to cut of...
Read more

Wankollie Barbara, Blog Post #2

     Our recent lectures in class concerning Russia's invasion of Ukraine while the USA, Nato, and,  EU, on the other hand, trying to " help" Ukraine from being invaded got me thinking about a scene from a book that I'm currently reading, called A Tempest, written by Aime Cesaire. In this book, one of the characters is perceived as a monster and is under the spell of the king called Prospero. Caliban(the monster), welcomes Prospero on his island, but Prospero having magical power took Caliban's land, turns him into a monster, and later curses him because he believed Caliban tried to rape his daughter. Caliban is trying to rebel against his master, to get his island back, but it’s not working because Prospero is way too powerful. But that’s not the point or scene I’m driving at. Fast forward, new people arrive on the island and are also admiring the things they see and they want to take over. So Caliban sees this as an opportunity to merge with these ...
Read more