As of January 2021, COVID-19 vaccinations are being rolled out in accord with longstanding patterns of pervasive inequality at the global level. While rich countries have been able to procure vaccines for their own citizens through direct agreements with pharmaceutical companies, low and middle income countries are lagging behind, unable to act as swiftly as rich countries in securing the doses needed or unable to afford to pay for any at all. The COVAX facility also seems to be unstable. Despite the rhetoric of global solidarity, the current race to secure vaccines by governments primarily for their own citizens seems to be unethical or unjust. For this second event of the IRG-GHJ, Sridhar Venkatapuram, Chair of the Independent Resource Group for Global Health Justice, and Sanjay Reddy, Associate Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research, will engage in a groundbreaking discussion on the ethical reasoning to justify or refute the current wave of ‘vaccine nationalism’.
Speakers
- Sridhar Venkatapuram, Chair, Independent Resource Group for Global Health Justice
- Sanjay Reddy, Associate Professor, The New School for Social Research
