One in three people want preferential access to a covid-19 vaccine

Editor’s note (October 9th 2020): This article has been updated since it was first published.

WHEN IT COMES to developing a vaccine for the coronavirus, some countries have decided to go it alone. Last month, the Trump administration said it would not participate in Covax, an alliance of more than 150 countries backed by the World Health Organisation formed to develop and distribute a covid-19 vaccine. Russia too has opted out. (China, which had also stayed out, said on October 9th that it would join in.) Such “vaccine nationalism” is counterproductive, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general. Eradicating the virus in some countries, while allowing it to fester in others, would only prolong the pandemic.