G7 summit: This one needs to be different

G7 summit: This one needs to be different

Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds walk with US President Joe Biden and Jill Biden. Reuters

Gordon Brown, The Independent

Biarritz, Quebec, Sicily, Shima, and Bavaria. Only the most obsessive followers of politics might recognise these locations as the five most recent places to host the annual G7 summit. If they are remembered at all, G7 gatherings are usually notable only for the leaders' photo calls “” and not for any big decisions made.

But as the world's richest countries prepare to gather again on Friday, one monumental decision can save Carbis Bay in Cornwall from being added to the list of long-forgotten G7 meetings. Leaders this weekend have a historic opportunity to stop Covid dead in its tracks, but they will only do so if they turn Boris Johnson's promise to mass vaccinate the world into a concrete plan.

The challenge is daunting. While 60 per cent of UK adults “” and 50 per cent of Americans “” have been vaccinated already, only 2 per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa have had their first shot and at the latest count only 0.2 per cent have been fully immunised. Not surprisingly the bishop of Cape Town has complained of a "vaccine apartheid“