In a new Netflix documentary, the director general of the WHO says "we don't have vaccines for misguided nationalism."
The gap between COVID-19 vaccine availability in rich and poor countries is only growing wider.
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When Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, visited China in January of 2020, his agency didn't understand much about the coronavirus.
Finally, then, "we started to know the virus," Tedros said, in the new Netflix documentary called, "Convergence: Courage in a crisis," released on Tuesday.
The film shares intimate scenes from the work and lives of doctors, ambulance workers, cleaners, patients, and others who've been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout 2020, in countries including China, the US, Brazil, Peru, Iran, England, India, and Switzerland (where Tedros works).
It also shines a light on how poorly health systems and political forces around the world have managed this crisis. For Tedros, the ultimate frustration has been the world's unwillingness to work as one during this time, with rich world leaders using the virus as a political tool or hoarding their vaccines for boosters, as poor countries struggle.
The COVID-19 vaccines we have can make the virus a manageable illness that is generally not life-threatening. They also help reducetransmission of the virus, since vaccinated people with breakthrough infection appear to be less infectious, and for less time. In turn, the evidence we have suggests, vaccines can help curtail the spread of this virus around the world, which could help prevent the emergence of new variants.
And yet, the gap between vaccine supplies for rich and poor countries only continues to grow.
"In WHO we say 'we need vaccines for COVID,' but we don't have vaccines for misguided nationalism, we don't have vaccines for inequality, no vaccines for poverty," Tedros said.
"What makes me sad is when the politics fail, even the technical knowledge doesn't work," Tedros said in the film. "We have to fight this virus in unison."
"We don't mind about that," the Ethiopian health expert said of the death threats. "We don't care about ourselves. We care about our world, because people are dying."
"For me, COVID-19 is a call, a clear call, a call that is telling us to really behave - to behave as a global community."
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