Via The Lancet: Priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic at the start of 2021: statement of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. Excerpt:
The Lancet COVID-19 Commission calls for three urgent actions in the COVID-19 response (our broader overview is available on our website).
First, all regions with high rates of new COVID-19 cases, including the USA and the European Union (EU), should intensify measures to minimise community transmission alongside rapid deployment of COVID-19 vaccines.
Second, governments should urgently and fully fund WHO and the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, including COVAX.
Third, the G20 countries should empower the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and multilateral development banks to increase the scale of financing and debt relief.
Success on all three priorities—containment of transmission, rapid vaccination, and emergency finance—will require improved global cooperation. The high rates of community transmission (>100 new COVID-19 cases per million per day) in the USA, Europe, South Africa, and other countries show the emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2, such as lineage B.1.1.7 in the UK, 501Y.V2 in South Africa, and additional variants emerging in California, USA, and in Brazil.
New lineages are increasing transmission of infection and raising risks in regions that have been less affected by COVID-19, including in sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, acquired immunity from earlier COVID-19 infections might be less protective against reinfection with some of the new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Mutant lineages might also reduce the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and require adapted vaccines or boosters.
The numbers of new COVID-19 cases in east Asia and the Pacific (<10 new cases per million per day in most countries) have been consistently below those of Northern America and Europe. The lower numbers of COVID-19 cases in these countries result from the successful implementation of comprehensive containment measures: border restrictions and other limits on movement; behavioural changes including widespread use of face masks and physical distancing; active surveillance by public health systems, including mass testing, backward tracing (to identify the sources of outbreaks), and forward tracing (to identify the contacts of new cases); and the quarantine of all suspected cases and the use of facility-based isolation of confirmed cases of COVID-19.
The USA and the EU failed to implement such comprehensive measures, and there was generally excessive decentralisation of containment efforts across the 50 US states and 27 EU members in 2020. Lack of centralised coordination undermined control of COVID-19, not least because of interstate travel in the USA and intercountry travel in the EU. Both the USA and EU need to step up more top–down coordination in 2021.
Stronger health systems that incorporate universal health coverage and community-based health workers are vital in the response to COVID-19. At least half of the world's population lacks access to essential health services. Strengthening community-based and gender-responsive health systems will be essential to implement inclusive and comprehensive COVID-19 immunisation campaigns.
The global roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines to date is neither inclusive nor adequately planned. COVAX has targeted immunisation coverage of at least 20% of the population in each participating country by the end of 2021, and has contracted for 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Yet the timely supply of vaccines to COVAX is in question, as high-income countries (HICs) step to the front of the queue for limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines.
As of Feb 9, 2021, 148·08 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been delivered, of which 115·67 million were delivered in the USA (43·21 million), China (40·52 million), the EU (18·36 million), and the UK (13·58). Other countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia (not including China) have received very few vaccine doses or none at all.
This unequal access to COVID-19 vaccines is partly due to the difficulty of managing the ultracold supply chain needed for the two mRNA vaccines, but it is also due to the vaccine supply deals negotiated by HICs directly with the vaccine producers, rather than through COVAX.
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