The Biggest “Short” Ever: a Shot
We have just before our eyes the most significant “short” investment opportunity that the world has produced in many generations: to control COVID-19. In financial language: “short” the virus.
During the first year, the World Economic Forum has estimated that the pandemic caused disruptions worth USD11 trillion in the global economy and that controlling it would unlock USD9 trillion worth of economic recovery. And let’s not forget, each month that goes by without taming it, we add USD500 billion to the tab of the USD11 trillion.
So, how do we unlock this opportunity to ‘short’ the virus? Global mass-scale vaccination is square one for this path. And what are the pitfalls to getting this first step right?
The international scientific community has already stepped up to the challenge and discovered safe and effective vaccines in record time, and manufacturers are making them with ever-expanding capacity. Governments from all developed countries have ordered more doses than they will need. Most emerging countries have also bought a significant amount of vaccines sufficient to cover the majority of the population.
Not so bad, right? We can say that more than 80% of the world’s economy will be immunized. Not exactly.
First, it is a people’s problem and, most importantly, a local people’s problem. Second, the world is more connected than ever, with more than four billion passengers transported every year by plane. This reality means that if we do not control COVID-19 everywhere, we will not control it at all, as the recent Brazilian and Indian mutations have proven.
And where do we have to focus our effort, as the international community, to make sure we will manage to get it right?
The answer is clear: In low-income countries, where governments have insufficient means to implement successful vaccination coverage because of budgetary and logistical constraints. A new report from McKinsey estimates that only 33% of the population of these countries live in urban areas, as opposed to 81% in high-income countries. So, not only do they not have the money, but it is much more complicated to set up a vaccination campaign. Vaccines do not deliver themselves. Let’s remember that vaccination and vaccines are not the same things.
According to the World Bank, the thirty-plus low-income countries have around 10% of the global population, which could make you think that the world can achieve global herd immunity without them, but, as I said before, this is a local people’s problem. If we leave these people unattended, it will be a humanitarian disaster like no other, not only to them but also for everyone. These hundreds of millions of people will become mutation farms for the infection that will inevitably spread globally.
And how are we doing so far? Not great! Through April 2021, the high-income countries had vaccinated over 20% of the population, while the low-income countries’ vaccination rate was close to 1%. We will have to do much better and much faster.
Paulo Dalla Nora Macedo is an entrepreneur in Brazil dedicated to civic initiatives to promote non-partisan political dialogue.
