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US bet on Pfizer and Moderna may lead to earlier COVID vaccine rollout
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics on this week's World In (More Than) 60 Seconds:
With COVID vaccine near, what will the distribution look like across the world?
Well, yeah, it is quite near. I mean, we're talking about approvals coming just in the next few days for the first in the United States and indeed in other countries around the world. That means that within weeks, you're going to know people that have actually gotten vaccines, and that's pretty exciting, especially with Moderna and Pfizer showing 95% effectiveness. I guess there are a few things that I would say. The first, hearing from the coronavirus task force that everyone in the United States gets the vaccine that wants to take it by June. I think that's right. I mean, there could be infrastructure and delivery hiccups. I hope there won't be. Everyone is going to be rowing in more or less the same direction on this because everyone understands how important it is to get it done.
I'm going to say it again. I don't think you're going to see a lot of people playing politics around taking the vaccine. There are anti-vaxers out there. I've already heard from a bunch of them, but you're not seeing that from Trump or his top advisors. You're not seeing that from Biden and from his incoming coronavirus task force. In the United States where everything gets politicized, a lot of people are going to be taking this coronavirus vaccine. And indeed, you already see numbers of people and their skepticism has been reduced significantly just in the last couple of weeks as we're learning more about it. I certainly feel much more comfortable that I will take these vaccines as soon as they are properly available to me. I'm not sure I would've said that three months ago, given where we were at that point. I feel very comfortable with that now. So that's number one.
Number two, the United States has bought as much as possible of not only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but other vaccines too. And the reason they do that is because when you see start making those orders, you don't know which vaccines are going to work. Because the Europeans have bet more strongly on AstraZeneca, which is a vaccine that has had problems in testing and doesn't do as well, that implies to me that the Americans are going to be getting this rollout before the Europeans do. And that will have economic implications for getting economies back up and rolling early next year. So the US does have a structural advantage here.
Also, final point. Let's keep this in mind. Those two vaccines in the United States are really vaccines that are most useful for advanced industrial economies, because they require much stronger infrastructure. You've got booster shots you need to deliver and you also have to have not just regular refrigeration, but more advanced cold chain technology. You're not using that in most of the developing world. The Chinese are going to be doing most of the early-stage export of their less effective, but still effective, vaccine to the developing world. Just needs regular refrigeration. And that's a lot of influence. I think you're going to see an enormous amount of politics play out as we see Chinese export to the developing world. And if you think that people are concerned about Belt and Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, you've seen nothing before the kind of leverage the Chinese influence over their best friends who get their vaccines earlier than other countries do and what they want in return.
This is also going to be one of the biggest challenges for the United States and China in terms of navigating the relationship. I mean, a lot of people think that the US-China relationship is going to be at least more normalized, maybe a little bit better, maybe more promising under Biden. I'm not sure. I see the outbreak of serious trade confrontation and diplomatic confrontation with Australia right now. I see it with Canada right now. I see so many countries that are really antagonized by the Chinese government. And I see these issues getting worse. So even with a group that's rowing in the same direction as the Biden administration will, and with tweets not driving people crazy, I suspect this relationship is going to be very challenging. And I think vaccine rollout is going to be a big problem. So that was a lot of time on your question, but it's a really important question.
Why is everyone on Twitter talking about monoliths?
I have no idea. Some artists installed some metallic thing in the middle of Utah that nobody saw for awhile, despite satellite technology. Why not? Why did no one notice? Aren't there people that spend all their time just looking at the land and seeing what's new? You'd think that AI would have figured that out, but no. No, apparently nobody noticed it, and then suddenly in person they did, and then the obelisk is gone. And I honestly don't care. And we're going to find out that it's... Remember the guy that took the banana and nailed the banana to the side of a wall and said it was an art installation and was charging $80,000? And some other crisis actor came and took down the banana and ate it. And the whole thing was a set up?
It is kind of is annoying. I mean, at least Banksy does it with real talent. The banana guy just did it with a stupid banana. Right? I mean, I don't consider that art and this obelisk is kind of a stupid obelisk, and I don't consider that art either. This is probably the most controversial thing I'm going to say all day. So come at me haters. I don't care. I'm just not interested in a stupid obelisk. The only thing would make me less interested in it is if you put it in Rhode Island. How's that? And drew cats on it. That would really annoy me. But they haven't done that. It's just a stupid obelisk, but it's on my list of things that I find annoying. So there you go.
The role NATO is playing in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic
What role, if any, does an intergovernmental military alliance like NATO have to play in the coronavirus pandemic? Quite a big one, says Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. "NATO's main task…is to prevent this health crisis from becoming a security crisis." How exactly does such a big organization like NATO accomplish that mission? That's a focus of his conversation with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Watch the full episode: Will NATO adapt to emerging global threats?
Podcast: Will NATO Adapt to Emerging Global Threats? Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's Perspective
Listen: The world has changed significantly since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Has the intergovernmental military alliance of NATO—which was founded to counter the Soviet threat to the West—done enough to keep up with today's landscape of global threats? Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg joins Ian Bremmer on the podcast to make the case for a modern, 21st century NATO. He'll discuss how the alliance is adapting to a variety of threats and challenges ranging from the rising influence of China to cyber warfare to the coronavirus pandemic.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Understanding Europe’s recent COVID-19 surge: Dr. Ashish Jha
"So this is one where I'll be honest with you, I got it wrong. I really thought that Europeans had learned their lesson from that first wave, and they would never let themselves kind of be subject to another large wave of infections." Public health expert Dr. Ashish Jha tries to put the recent COVID surge across Europe into a global context. Ian asks if the alarming spike proves that the United States has not, in fact, been the outlier of incompetence when it comes to corralling the virus.
Watch the episode: Dr. Ashish Jha on COVID-19 and the dark winter to come
How pandemic fatigue is affecting global COVID response
It's spreading. Maybe even faster and wider than the virus itself: pandemic fatigue. As infection rates in the United States and Europe skyrocket, Ian Bremmer looks at how tired we've all become of the virus. And yet, the virus does not seem to get tired of us.
Watch the episode: Dr. Ashish Jha on COVID-19 and the dark winter to come
Dr. Ashish Jha on COVID-19 and the dark winter to come
The US election may be over but the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. During the week of the election alone, the daily US case rate shattered the pandemic's previous record, reaching well over 100,000. The grim milestone made it all too clear the biggest story of the year, and of perhaps our lifetimes, continues to be the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of The Brown University School of Public Health, joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to take stock of how things got so bad (again) and how we can brace for the dark winter that awaits us.
Europe hopes to contain COVID surge; setback for Ukraine's president
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on Europe In 60 Seconds:
With COVID increasing in France, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere, has Europe lost control of the pandemic?
Well, I wouldn't say lost control, but clearly it is a very worrying situation. With COVID increasing virtually everywhere, we see a new wave of semi-lockdowns... it's not as bad as it was in the spring... with the hope of being able to contain the surge during the month of November. Let's wait and see.
What's going to be the impact of Ukraine's local election for President Zelensky and his policies?
The local election was undoubtedly a major setback for President Zelensky and his party, and there has been a number of them. He has sort of lost the momentum that he had a year ago, and that has been obvious also in the anti-corruption efforts. So, he needs to rapidly regain momentum, in my opinion. Let's see what happens.
What We're Watching: Europe's brutal second wave, protests in Iraq, tough talk from Turkey
Europe's second wave: After a brutal spring in which Europe emerged as a coronavirus epicenter, the outbreak largely subsided across the continent in the summer, allowing many Europeans to travel and gather in large groups. But now, a second wave of infection is wreaking havoc across Europe, with the region reporting more than 1.3 million cases this past week alone, according to the World Health Organization, the highest seven-day increase to date. Former coronavirus hotspots like France, Italy, Spain, and the UK are again grappling with a record number of new cases that could soon dwarf the out-of-control outbreaks seen this past spring. Meanwhile, countries like Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic that staved off massive outbreaks in the spring are also seeing an unprecedented number of new daily cases. As Europe now accounts for around 22 percent of all new COVID infections worldwide, hospitals in many cities are being swamped as many struggle to source life-saving equipment. As a result, Spain declared a national state of emergency Sunday, imposing nighttime curfews, while Italy imposed its strictest lockdown since May. Europe's Center for Disease Prevention and Control warned against complacency, noting that while transmission is mostly between younger people, keeping the death rate low, that could swiftly change if Europe doesn't get the virus in check.
Iraq a year later: Marking a year since the outbreak of widespread protests over corruption and joblessness in one of the world's most oil-rich countries, demonstrators in Iraq have again flooded the capital, Baghdad, and other cities with renewed calls to clean up graft and implement broader political and economic reforms. In recent years, unemployment has surged in the country, and millions of Iraqis have fallen into poverty while politicians have continued to line their pockets. The government's brutal crackdown on the last protests in 2019 — killing more than 500 people — remains a rallying cry, even after months of the pandemic largely kept activists off the streets. Police responded to the new wave of demonstrations fiercely, tear-gassing protesters, some of whom hurled Molotov cocktails at security forces. We're watching to see whether this fresh mobilization on the streets will move the needle on overdue reforms. The outcome of the US election could also play a role: will a Biden administration put more pressure on Baghdad to clean up its act?
Erdogan playing with fire: Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyib Erdogan let loose over the weekend, with a wild speech in which he dared the US to impose sanctions on his country, blasted the EU, and called French President Emmanuel Macron crazy. Erdogan is upset about Washington's warnings not to get more involved in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh, in which Ankara is openly backing Azerbaijan against Armenia, as well as US objections to Turkey's testing of an advanced missile system that it recently bought from Russia. Macron, for his part, needs "mental treatment," the Turkish president said, because of his views on "Islam and Muslims." Macron, who has traded barbs with Erdogan in the past, recently vowed to quash radical Islam after a jihadist beheaded a French teacher. Erdogan has a long history of throwing punches abroad to distract from problems at home, but with the Turkish lira hitting record lows, can he afford to be so pugnacious? The foreign investors whom he depends on to keep his economy afloat seem to think not.