Here in the UK the vaccine programme is rolling along. This brings with it a slightly more positive outlook in the news of the state of the world. However, when you look at the data presented in the map below we see a different picture. Africa is quite in comparison to any other continent. You could call it racism or the impact of poverty, but whatever you call it, it is unjust. As I mentioned a few months back, there is significant vaccine inequality happening before our eyes.
And here’s the thing. The inequality affects us all. The unequal vaccine distribution will likely lead to hotspots for COVID to incubate, which will lead to more COVID and more variants. The increase of variants will decrease the effectiveness of the vaccine and cycles will continue. And as we have seen with COVID, we live in a global world in which people travel. We know people are itching to travel to see loved ones. And even with some strict travel rules in place, we still have new variants making their way into our countries. Therefore, with vaccine inequality such as it is, we seem to setting ourselves up for more frustration in the future.