TOP12 COVID 19

• Affection of pandemic differed between the world rgeions

  • Europa and North America high rates of infections and deaths

  • sub-Saharan Africa remained below fears (due to younger population)

  • Brazil particular suffered due to Bolsonares half-hearted interventions

• Polypandemic also due to the different sectors that were affected

• Degree to which states were able to cope with pandamic significantly depended on the quality of institutions and the degree of social protection

  • pandemic response policies played an importan role

  • China managed it’s crisis quite well as they had strong institutions

• Central to human security are social systems

  • e.g. in how fare a healthcare system and health insurances are provided

  • have been eroded in many countries under neoloiberal “lean state”

  • Especially rural regions are often marginalised and suffer from a poor infrastructure for basic needs (clean water, energy and security) = thus more vulnerable

  • Especially indigenous population have poot access to information and health institutions

  • Also people in slum-like dwellings were particularly affected due to the fact that states don’t actively take care of them

Health system in a stress test

• 75% in least developed countries live in slum-like dwelling without the opportunities to take care of the aquired hygene techniques or distance techniques

• high numbers of infected in the European or Northern American countries led to an overflood of hospitals which run out of capcits and treatment of normal illnesses were restricted or

  • rising rates of maternal and child mortality

Food and Poverty Insecurity

• Especially the urban poor suffered from scarcity or high food prices

  • no alternatives e.g. farming or buying somewhere else

  • Also many countires depend on the global food markets and suffered from increasing prices

  • number of undernourished people rised by nearly 1/5

• People fell into extreme poverty

• not fundamental

• the global North remains the top of the pyramide due to more opportunities of rebalancing and more stable political institutions with higher means

  • political (and economic) power used in supply chains and economic networks

    • e.g. global North managed to ship around the general idea of COVAX and cooperated with each other so their were able to make more favourable deals for the pharmacy industry

    • weaponised interpendence e.g. China nearly calmed down the whole car industry in Germany due to the shortened/stopped deliver of micro chips

    • Later oligopol in the buying of vaccines

• CHINA <-> US hegemony “fight”

  • tried to instrumentalise the pandamic for domestic goals and polarisation

    • Trump “Wuhan Flu”

    • China exported most vaccines to those countries they wanted on their side

• BUT two mechanisms that challenged the world order

  • coordination at UN level (same opportunities 4 all)

  • WHO didn’t announce universal health norms, in former times measures affected everybody no matter if they were accurate to the situation and needs of a country or not

• Neoliberal predomination was tackled but foremost showed its resilience

  • crisis tackled the neoliberal order as it again showed that the market is not able to produce the best outcome of goods and effects human lifes

  • The global South even tried to secure the market

  • But neoliberal paradigm is a cultural formation and subtile technolgy of power

    • path dependecy manifests this order

• Also those who benefit from the neoliberal paradigm, global elites, gained even mor influence during pandamic

  • Bill Gates gained much influence in the Global Health Policy

• USA failed to perform with policy competence and lost soft power

  • hesist and inappropriate response on the domestic level contributed to how numbers of victims

  • money from the WHO was withdrawn

  • Instead of taking care of the health of humans they spent trillion of dollars to secure the survival of the economy => most important to hegemony

  • ALSO in the COVAX facility they didn’t contribute to the general purpose of the facility of accessible and affordable vaccines rather they shipped around it by bilateral cooperation with the UK

  • China was able to controle the virus and spent billion dollars for research in the WHO framework (diplomatic causes)

• US-China realtionship was tense

  • US assumed that China was weaponising its role in medical supply chain

  • but they agreed on a trade agreement showing that economic interests weren’t fundamentally changed

• Neoliberal predomination was tackled but foremost showed its resilience

  • crisis tackled the neoliberal order as it again showed that the market is not able to produce the best allocation of goods and effects human lifes

  • The global South even tried to secure the market

  • But neoliberal paradigm is a cultural formation and subtile technolgy of power

    • path dependecy manifests this order

• Also those who benefit from the neoliberal paradigm, global elites, gained even mor influence during pandamic

  • Bill Gates gained much influence in the Global Health Policy

• Governmental measures to reduce the negative externalities of the pandemic are also fostering the neoliberal paradigm as it, even not always, protects humans from the market therefor it can be seen as a stabilising mechanism

  • one prerequisite in the neoliberal order

• BUT two mechanisms that challenged the world order

  • coordination at UN level (same opportunities 4 all)

  • WHO didn’t announce universal health norms, in former times measures affected everybody no matter if they were accurate to the situation and needs of a country or not

• AND also showing strong welfare states that is countering the favoured by neoliberalism “lean state”

  • austerity policy was abandoned and governmental spending significantly increased

  • actively intervented in supply chains

• COVAX eventhough it kind of failed, showed that there is an alternative to oligopolistic marjet structures

Main goal

• leveraging an accessible and affordable provision of vaccines to all states

Mechanism

• pharma industry favoured bying in bulk -> wasn’t possible for developing countires

• facility bought vaccines from the producers in order to distribute them worldwide and particular to poorer regions in GS

• BUT

  • repeating seariously delays

  • the dosis of low-income countries were formally procured but the finance was made through ODA, private sector and philanthropy so those countries dependen on “charity aid” and goof-will of foreign policy priorities

    • Higher-income countries (US) didn’t finance

    • RIC followed their “vaccine diplomacy” and provided aid ans support on bilateral level