Nathan Jeffay is the health and science correspondent for The Times of Israel
Donating surplus coronavirus vaccines will save more lives for Western superpowers than keeping them, Israeli academics say in a new game theory.
If giant Western states have enough vaccines to make a big difference in vaccination rates in emerging countries, “it’s optimal that they donate their surplus vaccines,” they concluded in a peer-reviewed review just published in Communications Medicine last week.
The Israeli-Danish-German study team used a style of game theory, that is, complex mathematics to wait for the impact of other possible options that countries could take, to assess the impact of large vaccine donations.
Their debates eluded what is ethical or ethical at the global point and reduced the challenge to a matter of self-interest. They wondered what benefited vaccine-rich countries the most for them.
They wrote: “In an unequal world with open economies, pandemics prevent at national borders. High-income countries can benefit from assistance to low-income countries.
“In particular, since new variants of a virus may appear in vaccine-poor countries, vaccine-rich countries would possibly have a strong incentive to donate their surplus doses of vaccines rather than stockpiling them nationally. “
Professor Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan of the Hebrew University told The Times of Israel: “What we have found is that, under the current circumstances, giant countries are interested in donating, because in the medium term, every year, the charge will be lower for them in terms of lives and money, compared to if they did not give.
The United States and other superpowers have donated vaccines from the COVAX initiative. But it took too long and happened on too small a scale, Sulitzeanu-Kenan concluded, along with colleagues Adam Lampert, Pieter Vanhuysse and Markus Tepe.
Sulitzeanu-Kenan and her team modeled several variables to assess whether it makes sense for countries to donate.
They wrote that the study is important because the pandemic has been characterized by “an incredibly asymmetric distribution of vaccines. “They expect many other people to run out of vaccines until mid-2023 and said: “Given that around 85% of the population lives in low- and middle-income countries, most of humanity remains exposed to ongoing epidemics. This increases the threat of new viral variants emerging, which may reduce the efficacy of existing vaccines. “
The key to saving lives, according to the model, is the emergence of new variants. New strains of COVID are more likely to emerge in spaces where vaccination is low and have the effect of triggering new waves of infection that may forget about existing ones. immunity and prolonging the pandemic.
A basic question posed through Sulitzeanu-Kenan is how variants arise temporarily. If they were scarce, it would lessen the fear point and restrict the price of vaccine donations, according to their model. But their research showed that variants are now emerging fast enough. to mean that countries have everything to gain by managing threats through vaccine donation.
Another key variable is how higher levels of immunity can be improved in the coming countries. The model concluded that if more than 75% of vaccination can be achieved in these countries, the threat of new variants will most likely decrease particularly and the number will decrease. of cases, in a way that is likely to serve the interests of donor countries.
The central focus for countries looking to calculate the self-interest of the gift is whether their donation has the strength to decrease the chances of variants arising. Sulitzeanu-Kenan said the answer is yes, only for giant countries.
For small states like Israel, any donation to the global source of vaccines would be too small to have an effect in their own interest, Sulitzeanu-Kenan suggested. (He noted that asking what is more ethically or ethically productive was beyond the scope of his study. )
“It would possibly be the right selection for the self-interest of big countries that can make a big difference,” he said. “This would be the case in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China and Japan, even if a donation from Israel will not have the same effect. “
Sulitzeanu-Kenan said that, according to her model, foreign fitness leaders made a mistake by soliciting donations from everyone they could give. With such a global appeal, no specific country felt honored.
“In retrospect, fitness officials first approached the U. S. “The U. S. and the European Union,” Lampert said. It would have been better to urge them to give generously and quickly, saying that if they didn’t make a primary donation, nothing would happen. “and others would not give.
“This study is theoretical. What we plan to do now is to assess public opinion to see if it is more likely to be due to the policies we are discussing. And even before that, we expect our study to influence policymakers,” Lampert added.
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