Emergence of a New COVID-19 Variant

JEREMY FARRAR, DIRECTOR, WELLCOME TRUST: Well, it’s a historic moment. And give great credit to the Biden administration for bringing this forward. But I think it’s very important to appreciate the time frame that that will play out. Yes, the discussion at the World Trade Organization, I think, is critical. It shows that the Biden administration is committed to multilateralism and working with partners. Those are really important signals. But, in the short term, it’s not going to change the vaccine access, I’m afraid. That is going to come about because countries who have access to a lot of vaccines make sure they’re available through the COVAX facility that the WHO brings together, the ACT- A, partnership, and that those vaccines are made available equitably to the world. That needs to happen yesterday, it needs to happen today, and it needs to happen tomorrow. This is the only way that we can reduce transmission sustainably, prevent new variants coming out, and ultimately coming back to haunt all of our countries in the future. So, it’s important, but it’s not going to be the immediate response that we need in the next coming days and weeks.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, just let me ask you then to fill in the gaps on that immediate response that is required, because how much longer are we going to have to wait for that very thing that you just said to actually take place? It was the promise of the rich and developed world at the very beginning that they would share the vaccine. We will put patents aside for the moment. But they would make sure the developing world had them as well. I mean, what more needs to happen to make this take place?

FARRAR: Well, I’m afraid this does come back to the political leadership. This comes back, essentially, to a small number of countries. It’s essentially through the G7, through the G20, and a small number of other countries and regions — the European Union is part of this as well — to vaccinate their own populations. We all understand the need to do that. But many countries have now made great progress in that. Here in the U.K., an incredible number of people have been vaccinated, same in the United States. Transmission is now very low. The number of people in hospital dying and with illness from COVID, in the U.S., the U.K. and increasingly in Europe is now very, very low. We should be sharing vaccines today. The U.S., for instance, has about 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. I would — I doubt if those will ever be used in the U.S. We could make those available now through COVAX. Some countries, France, particularly, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, have already committed to sharing, and have made some available, but in small quantities. We have got to do this at scale. We have got to get these vaccines, yes, to India, but also to the rest of the world, the rest of the world that is in danger of the pandemic continuing to spiral out of control.