Pitfalls of vaccine nationalism

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic brought the world literally to a standstill, with infections in the millions and deaths of more than 1.8 million people. But then, another one million died in the next three months. The number of Covid-19 deaths now stands at 2,887,039 as of April 7, 2021, and the number keeps increasing every day.

This, of course, may not be a very high figure compared to some other pandemics, like the Black Death or the Spanish Flu. The former killed as many as 225 million people in four years in 1347-1351, while the latter killed 50 million people in 2 years in 1918-1919. In recent times, the Swine Flu killed between 151,700-575,400 people in 2009-2010, while the Ebola virus killed only 11,300 people in 2014-2016. The Asian Flu (H2N2) killed 1.1 million people in 1957-1958, and the Hongkong Flu (H3N2) killed 1 million people in 1968-1970. Such virus-related deaths otherwise suggest the irregular regularity of pandemics, and since some of the viruses become deadly through mutation, there is no escape from them. They co-evolve and live with other living beings.