The Killer's Henchman

Summer 2021, the novel coronavirus is scything through populations worldwide. WHO Director-General announces the pandemic will end "when the world chooses to end it. We have all the tools we need: proven public health and social measures; rapid and accurate diagnostics; effective therapeutics including oxygen; and of course, powerful vaccines." The pandemic didn't end.

The proven health and social measures Tedros mentioned, used by China, Vietnam, New Zealand and a few others to drive infections to zero, were ignored in favor of allowing the virus to run riot, or imposing half measures only when hospitals were under an unbearable strain.

The promised vaccine exit ramp turned out to be more mirage than oasis. Countries that rolled out vaccines quickly to large parts of their populations, soon turned to boosters, but with little success.

Poor- and middle-income countries experienced a global vaccine apartheid.

Stephen Gowans investigates why, despite the availability of necessary tools, the world failed to prevent the Covid-19 disaster. Examining the business opportunities and pressures that helped shape the world's failed response, he concludes that the novel coronavirus, a killer, had a helper in bringing about the calamity: capitalism, the killer's henchman.