If the United States were to successfully develop a coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Zeke Emanuel would rather send it to other countries before making sure that every American has been treated and is safe from the virus.
Emanuel had a major role in building the Affordable Care Act while serving under the Obama administration and has now been appointed to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force as one of ten advisory board members.
In September he co-authored a paper in which he pushes the “Fair Priority Model” which calls for a “fair international distribution of vaccine,” instead of what he and his colleagues call “vaccine nationalism.”
After the vaccine is produced the model would allow the U.S. to hold on to a limited supply that would go to a predetermined number of Americans and the rest would be distributed internationally. That means selling doses of the vaccine for a profit before it is available to everyone in our country.
The Science magazine paper titled “An ethical framework for global vaccine allocation,” says, “Reasonable national partiality does not permit retaining more vaccine than the amount needed to keep the rate of transmission (Rt) below 1, when that vaccine could instead mitigate substantial COVID-19–related harms in other countries that have been unable to keep Rt below 1 through ongoing public-health efforts.”
Emanuel wrote, “Associative ties only justify a government’s giving some priority to its citizens, not absolute priority.”
The Trump administration promised to share the coronavirus vaccine with the rest of the world but only after American needs are met and the U.S. will not negotiate with the World Health Organization on distribution.
President Trump announced in May that Congress had approved nearly $10 billion for Operation Warp Speed, which works with private companies to facilitate and accelerate the production and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine.
