COVID Vaccines and Global Cooperation

In a world as interconnected socially, economically, and politically as our own, we've given direct pipelines for viruses to travel across the globe in an instant, compared to the isolation many viruses and bacteria experienced in previous decades and centuries. Stretching its roots deep into the past, the increase in globalization has been steadily marching along, and I have little doubt it will begin to slow down. In many ways, this globalization is a beneficial aspect of the world as we know it; in others, however, we must come to understand -- and quickly -- the dangers inherent in such a system. 

We should've learned from the Black Death, and then we should've learned from the epidemics Europeans brought to the natives of America. The various influenza pandemics should've set alarm bells screaming, and when that failed, it should've been the Ebola scare on American soil in 1989, or HIV/AIDS beginning that same decade. Or maybe it should've been SARS, or MERS, or Zika, or a million other moments and scares throughout history, almost every single one linked back to the global pipelines spreading across the world. We know the dangers -- or at least we say we do -- and yet not much changes. Precautions are taken in the moment, sure, but they rarely last once the virus slinks out of the spotlight. We return, like dogged lovers, to the same old habits that killed a portion of our population off before. After all, the vast majority of us are still alive, aren't we?

It's not difficult to see why many scientists have grown increasingly concerned about the potential prevalence such pandemics could take in our future lives. The slew of diseases that have caused scares -- or, in the case of a few, genuine pandemics -- goes on and on, and it seems that every year, we add something new to the list. Yet it comes as a fundamental problem in the way we handle ourselves. In an anthropocentric era, we treat nature as a lesser being, as a tool to be harnessed and used for our own good. We raze it, corral and breed species for our unnatural gain, and push back the fringes of the wilderness into neat, manageable rows. And in first-world countries, the result is even worse, with many governments and corporations seeing developing nations as expendable pawns for cheap labor and resources -- the same areas that usually discover some virus hidden in the woodwork and free it from its reservoir, all because humankind is greedy and materialistic. 

So often in science fiction stories do we hear of great civilizations creating the very thing that wiped them out. This will likely be our fate, as well, but the fiction got it wrong. Our technology won't undo us; our greedy natures, so adept at uncovering the hidden mines of viruses, will be our demise. We aren't cautious enough. And with the world growing ever more divided, we're failing to realize that cooperation is going to be the best tool we could ever have for fighting disease. The very idea of this prompt -- focusing on the ways in which cooperation will be necessary to create and distribute a vaccine -- is alarming, because tensions are so high between many countries. We were caught by COVID unprepared, and now we'd rather argue politics than save lives. 

It is assuredly possible to distribute a vaccine globally, but no country can do it alone. Manufacturing cannot be done at a small scale, by a single company, and distribution becomes even more complicated. Once a vaccine is developed, supplies are needed -- dry ice and cold-resistant glass vials, for example -- to even transport the doses to locations to administer them. Storage is required by shipping companies to keep them cold. Doctors and nurses need to understand the vaccine to the best of their ability, and patients need to understand any risks involved in the process. Likewise, doctors and nurses need to be available to administer the doses, and patients need to be able to get to the locations easily and affordably. We're told the U.S. military is going to assist with distribution of the vaccine, and that many schools and stores with pharmacies (such as Wal-Mart) will have the vaccine available, but they, too, have to have the storage for hundreds or thousands of doses, and the supply has to meet the demand. 

The global distribution of any vaccine is a monumental task, and it will require the entire world's efforts. One country may have the scientists who develop the most effective vaccine, but that's merely step one. Even the countries with the best infrastructure and manufacturing in the world cannot succeed at this alone. But it's genuinely difficult to imagine many countries working together effectively, and the idea that this rests on such an idea is terrifying.