BY SANTIAGO ZABALA SO far, most world governments have managed to weather the storm of COVID-19. Countless administrations that have been unable or unwilling to implement the necessary measures to protect their citizens from the deadly virus are still in office over a year into the pandemic. This, however, could soon change as countries have now entered a race to vaccinate their citizens against COVID-19, reach herd immunity and, finally, leave this unprecedented public health emergency behind. Governments around the world are aware that the fastest and least-costly way out of this pandemic is through widespread vaccination and they have been under immense pressure to immunise their populations as quickly as possible since the first safe and effective vaccines were announced in November 2020. However, rapid mass vaccination has proved elusive for many countries for multiple reasons — many of them political or even ideological rather than practical. Injustices surrounding vaccine production and distribution left many countries without sufficient vaccine doses to immunise even the most vulnerable segments of their populations. Certain countries’ efforts to engage in so-called “vaccine diplomacy” and use the vaccines they produced or acquired as a soft power tool further widened the gap between those who have access to vaccines and those who do not. The distrust in scientists and political elites, meanwhile, resulted in a growing wave of vaccine refusal, especially in the West. If these obstacles to widespread vaccination are not rapidly addressed, new variants will continue to emerge and prolong a health crisis which has already claimed more than 2,7 million lives and devastated the global economy. Failure to reach herd immunity soon can also result in widespread political instability and the fall of several governments who so far managed to remain in office despite their many mistakes and missteps. The “me-first” approach taken by rich and vaccine-producing countries — which make up only 14% of the world population — is not simply delaying vaccination but also paving the way for the emergence of variants that are less susceptible to vaccines. Several rich nations, from the UK to Canada, have hoarded enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations several times over. Of the 225 million vaccine doses that have been administered so far, the vast majority have been in a handful of rich countries, while most low- and middle-income countries have been left to watch and wait. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) general director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, this approach is not sustainable because it permits the virus to spread and mutate in regions that do not have access to vaccines, which could undermine the efficacy of existing vaccines everywhere. Pharmaceutical companies and Western governments have blocked proposals to waive patents for the vaccines, making it even more difficult for many low- and middle-income countries to immunise their citizens. The rich countries’ tendency to use their surplus vaccine do