Junyang Cai (Shanghai University – School of Management), Jian Zhou (Shanghai University, School of Management), Athanasios A. Pantelous (Monash University – Department of Econometrics & Business Statistics), & Musen Kingsley Li (Shanghai University – School of Management) have posted Breaking Vaccine Nationalism: An Equitable Vaccine Distribution Framework under Humanitarian Perspectives on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
During the recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis, vaccine nationalism or a my country first approach to allocation led to several high-income countries bidding against one another, driving up the vaccine prices and several of the related materials. As a result of this conflict, the income inequality between rich and poor countries has widened even more and significantly challenged the poorer countries’ ability to deliver and administer doses that could slow the spread of the virus elsewhere, as well as preventing it from mutating through the replication process. We therefore present, in this paper, a novel data-driven vaccine distribution framework to address this ethical phenomenon with its serious detrimental consequences for the achievement of global interconnectedness and the United Nations goals of a better and more sustainable future for all. Our proposed framework consists of two models, the multi-strain Susceptible-VaccinatedInfected-Removed-Susceptible network and the vaccine distribution models. The case of the COVID-19 pandemic is then successfully applied to the proposed vaccine distribution framework, and we further simulate the epidemic development as affected by vaccine nationalism, to emphasize its perniciousness and verify the effectiveness of our treatment. We demonstrate clearly that the equitable vaccine distribution strategy could hasten the end of the pandemic. On the contrary, daily vaccine distribution that is concerned with effectiveness but weakens considerations of equity is myopic, similar to a “rob Peter to pay Paul” approach, and barely controls the spread of mutant strains. Further, the benefit of vaccine nationalism for high-income countries is only transient, as they will likely suffer from the mutant strain at a later date, when the vaccines are less effective against it. Finally, even if vaccine hesitancy is persistent, there is still some chance of ending the pandemic by vaccinating the rest of the willing population, under conditions of equitable distribution, to rapidly develop herd immunity. The framework presented here can offer constructive guidance in terms of vaccine allocation for future potential pandemics as well, including the current monkeypox outbreak.