Western countries must share Covid vaccines – if only for the sake of their GDP

Western countries must share Covid vaccines – if only for the sake of their GDP

The world economy is on course to bounce back from the pandemic with a momentum that will carry through to next year and beyond.

This prediction, to which all the main economic forecasters subscribe – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – is based on the successful rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in China, Russia, most of south-east Asia, Europe and the US.

Economists have adopted this optimistic view, while the vaccine-makers remain divided about the need to inoculate everyone in the world quickly to prevent new and more deadly strains of the virus from emerging.