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The COVID-19 crisis, Herd Immunity, and “Vaccine Apartheid” in the Age of Anthropocene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2022

Hiroshi Fukurai ,
Robin Gabriel  and
Xiaochen Liang
Hiroshi Fukurai*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Robin Gabriel
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Xiaochen Liang
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: hfukurai@ucsc.edu
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Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic has led to millions of deaths around the world. In many countries, it has also exposed long-standing inequities and injustices in health care, income distribution, labour market practice, and social protection for the poor, women, indigenous peoples, and other marginalized segments of the population. The disproportionate casualties among vulnerable populations have also exposed predatory corporate practices, such as the refusal to share vaccine patents with low-income countries (LIC) in the Global South. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that this “vaccine apartheid” could lead to the further spread of more dangerous forms of virus variants, and that global solidarity and collaboration may be the only viable approach to current and future pandemics.1 Scientists have long warned that the continued destruction of the environment and ecological diversity would lead to future waves of cross-species (zoonotic) viral pandemics, due to the elimination of “natural borders” that once existed between human and non-human species. In the last several decades alone, humanity has suffered from five major zoonotic pandemics: AIDS, SARS, MARS, Ebola, and COVID-19.2 This Special Issue focuses on a select group of Asian countries in order to critically examine the impact of socio-legal inequities in state-centric policies upon domestic populations, including indigenous peoples, and to explore the possibility of international collaborative strategies for controlling the spread of deadly viruses and their variants in the coming years and decades, in Asia and beyond.

Keywords

COVID-19World Health Organization (WHO)vaccine apartheidindigenous peoplesCubavaccine untouchablesvaccine genocide
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 2023 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society

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