The terrible Covid divisions

Brazil has suffered 500,000 deaths from Covid and there is little sign that the speed of the virus in this country and in the rest of South America is slowing. Brazil is struggling to get enough vaccines while the richer countries in the West are enjoyng a glut of vaccines and promise to give millions of vaccine doses to the nations that are desperately in need. But the pandemic has been with us for eighteen months and it is tragic that the world is divided between those countries who are now reaching the end of the nightmare and the others who are still at the peak of their traumas. It was always going to be like this because this is the way the world works. But a huge effort is now required to accelerate the programmes and to boost vaccination programmes where they are most needed. It seems immoral for the better-off countries to be predicting a return to normality in the next few months while other parts of the world have nothing but grim foreboding to look forward to. Inequalities will never be removed but countries such as Brazil and others in South America and Africa need to be given priority assistance. I don't trust the World Health Organisation to carry this out. They have proven once again to be an over-stuffed bureaucracy, too slow to make the big decisions and too reluctant to acknowledge a pandemic when it was staring at them in the face. Joe Biden has many troubles at home to sort out, not least the battle over getting Congress to approve his infrastructure plans and the continuing failure to meet the immigration challenges. But his voice should be the loudest in demanding vaccines for everyone, especially in the most desperate nations.