Linking this image here taken from the New York Times’s covid vaccinations tracker which gives a full perspective on the vaccine divide between low-income developing countries and high-income countries. This link contains both graphs and tables to understand the concept of vaccine inequity better:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html
In his latest address from the White House on September 23, President Joe Biden announced that the USA was going to double its vaccine donation to 1.1 billion – a number larger than the total amount of donations by all other countries collectively.
As part of Biden’s challenge to world leaders to vaccinate 70% of the global population and 70% of each country’s population by 2022, he urged wealthier nations to step in and follow the USA’s example, emphasizing on “donating, not selling” to lower-income countries. Biden further stressed that the donations should be made “with no political strings attached”, in what is being viewed as a jab at rival China.
But when has the United States of America ever done anything “with no political strings attached”?
The USA has historically used countries in the Global South as a pawn in its own wars – be it the War on Terror or the Cold war – under the guise of protecting the citizens of these developing countries and upholding democracy. Hence, President Biden’s latest address seems oddly familiar, in which he said, “America will become the arsenal of vaccines, as we were the arsenal for democracy during World War II”.
The timing of Biden’s announcement seems impeccable especially because earlier in the week, China announced that it had delivered 1.1 billion vaccine doses to 100 countries. Based on past precedent, it is evident that similar to how the US used countries like Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea as a battlefield in its Cold War against the Soviet Union, the US is using low-income countries as a battlefield in its war for “vaccine diplomacy” against China.
In the address, President Biden also declared a new EU-US partnership to “work more closely on expanding global vaccinations” in the wake of which the EU announced that it was increasing its vaccine donations to 500 million. Ironically though, the G7 countries including the USA and the EU have already purchased one-third of the world’s vaccine supply for their own populations despite accounting for only 13% of the global population.
Earlier in June, Biden promised to donate half a billion Pfizer vaccines to 92 middle and low-income countries including the African Union through COVAX. According to most news outlets, 160 million doses have already been distributed, and the remaining will be supplied in the coming year, as part of Biden’s goal to vaccinate 70% of the global population.
So, why then is the USA suddenly choosing to be more generous?
The answers all lie in the numbers. President Biden has been under scrutiny for encouraging a third vaccine dose for US citizens when fewer than 2% of the populations in developing countries have had their first shot. In some countries, the percentage is even lesser: 0.1% fully vaccinated in Yemen, 0.2% in Haiti, 0.3% in South Sudan, and less than 0.1% in Congo.
Health experts say that a total of 6 to 9 million vaccines are needed to inoculate the developing world. Even if Biden lives up to his promise of 1.1 million vaccines whether out of genuine concern for the developing world or to save face and/ or rival China, they will still be far too little to achieve his goal of vaccinating 70% of the globe.
Sources:
Biden says US donating extra 500 million COVID vaccines. (2021). The Korea Times. https://www.pressreader.com/search?query=biden%20vaccine
Biden pushing rich nations to share vaccine. (2021). Arab News. https://www.pressreader.com/search?query=biden%20vaccine
Holder, J. (2021). Tracking coronavirus vaccinations around the world. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html
Miller, Z. (2021). Biden announces sharing of vaccinations. Tulsa World. https://www.pressreader.com/search?query=biden%20vaccine
Smith, D. (2021). Biden increases US Covid vaccine donations to 1.1bn. The Guardian. https://www.pressreader.com/search?query=biden%20vaccine
Attaching this graph here which I have directly taken from the 2020 Orange County Hate Crimes Report, to substantiate the remark I made regarding the distinction between hate crimes and hate incidents in my most recent blog.
Racially motivated crimes against the Asian and Asian-American communities have increased worldwide and especially in the USA during the covid pandemic, with some blaming Asians due to the virus’s origins in Wuhan, China. Former US President Trump too added fuel to fire by referring to the pandemic as the “China virus” or “Kung flu”. The hate crimes range from hate-motivated graffiti on private property to physical assault to even murder.
For my second blog, I will be examining an article published by the Los Angeles Times on September 18, 2021. Titled “Orange County hate crimes up 35% in 2020”, the article reports on a study conducted by the nonprofit, Orange County Human Relations Commission, regarding the increase in hate crimes and racial violence during the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
While the article is correct in identifying the significant increase in hate crimes in 2020, motivated by anti-Asian sentiments during the pandemic, as highlighted in the OCHRC report, it’s gotten the numbers all wrong.
The article correctly points out that hate crimes in Orange County have increased by “35%” which is “the largest annual jump in at least a decade”. However, it fails to clarify that this stat refers to the total number of hate crimes. The increase in hate crimes against just the Asian population is 40%.
Another place where the article falls short is in identifying the distinction between hate crimes and hate incidents as understood by the state law in California. Both hate crimes and hate incidents are “motivated by hate or bias toward a person’s actual or perceived disability, gender identity, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation”.
However, while hate crimes are criminal offenses, behaviors classified as “hate incidents” are often protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of expression. If such behaviors escalate or pose a threat of violence, they are then treated as a “hate crime”, and the perpetrator can be prosecuted on these grounds. This distinction between hate crimes and hate incidents is necessary to draw conclusions from the statistics, as the report itself indicates.
In 2020, 112 hate crimes and 263 hate incidents were reported in Orange County. Hence, while the total increase in hate crimes is 35%, the total increase in hate incidents is 69%. Moreover, for the Asian population specifically, the increase in hate incidents is 1800%! By not reporting this astounding stat, the article is downplaying the significantly high threat against Asians following the pandemic.
Although the article has gotten the statistics wrong, even when it only required a simple copy-paste directly from the report, it’s successfully identified the news (increase in hate crimes and hate incidents), the cause (anti-Asian racial prejudice following the pandemic), and the problem even within these astounding numbers (hate attacks remain underreported).
Sources:
2020 Orange County Hate Crime Report. (2021). Orange County Human Relations Comission. https://www.occommunityservices.org/sites/occs/files/2021-09/Hate%20Crime%20Report%202020.pdf
Do, A., & Fry, H. (2021). O.C hate crimes up 35% in 2020. The Los Angeles Times. https://www.pressreader.com/usa/los-angeles-times/20210918/page/95/textview
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684
Within the first year of the pandemic, 54 million women around the world lost their jobs, widening the gender gap in employment. Out of this 54 million, around 90 percent left the labor force completely compared to about 70% of men. The Washington Post analyzed data from Thailand, Peru, and France to study the impact of the pandemic on the gender gap in employment.
According to estimates by the International Labor Organization, between 2019 and 2020, female employment has declined by 4.2 percent compared to 3 percent for men. The Post’s study identified one reason for this is that in most countries, women were disproportionately represented in service sector jobs such as in hospitality, retail, and foodservice which were devastated by continuous or recurring lockdowns. In Thailand, for example, the collapse of the tourism industry hit women hard – by the second quarter of 2020, 339,000 women had lost their jobs compared to 5,500 male workers as 30% of all women were working in sectors that were the most affected by the pandemic.
Another reason for the unequal distribution of unemployment among men and women is that around the world, more women than men were working informal jobs without job security, regular hours, and benefits.
In addition to the disproportionate share of job losses, data from Peru revealed that women are also recovering from job losses slower than men, and many have been further forced to move from the formal to the informal workforce. Moreover, women’s hours of unpaid labor have also increased as they took on more responsibility within their households for childcare, elder care, and homeschooling.
However, while the gender gap in employment has widened universally, in some countries, the gap has narrowed, such as in the case of France, where in late 2020, the gap narrowed to a record low in the past 10 years. Analysis of data obtained at the early stages of the pandemic from France showed that social welfare programs across the European Union may have cushioned the fall in female employment. While this is news worth celebrating, it is too early to decide how long the country’s social safety net would protect women.
Looking at global trends, data analysts worry that the pandemic has canceled out decades of progress towards gender equality. Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World economic Fund says, “What the data are telling us is that it could take a generation longer to get to equality.”
Sources:
Rauhala, E., Narayanswamy, A., Sin, Y., & Ledur, J. (2021). How the pandemic set back women’s progress in the global workforce. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/coronavirus-women-work/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=wp_main
Hi! My name is Laiba Mubashar. Welcome to my blog!