Ending the COVID-19 Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy, Distribution, and Disparities

Abstract

As the world grapples with widespread illness and immense personal and economic losses, we seek to understand how the vaccine has become such an intensely polarizing concept that further exacerbates global economic and social disparities. Despite many nations working toward the common goal of herd immunity, why do some governments have access to enough vaccine doses to vaccinate their populations several times over, while others remain reliant on WHO distribution programs like COVAX in order to receive vaccine doses at all? How can nations concurrently address the direct public health consequences and the indirect economic impacts of this pandemic, while engaging in successful vaccination campaigns? These are the complex questions that inspired our Task Force, and they are the questions that this report seeks to answer