Pfizer and Moderna just raised prices for their COVID vaccines in the EU. And they’re still not producing enough vaccines to go around. As Matt Stoller details, the Biden administration was supposed to break the vaccine monopoly in order to make it possible for factories globally to produce the vaccine and pay royalties to Pfizer and Moderna. Spoiler: they did not. Luckily for developing nations, and just like PPE and other needed items, China and Russia are stepping in with their vaccines to deliver what the West can’t.
“Global orders don’t unravel due to great conflicts, they unravel because a hegemonic power stops delivering the mix of favors, coercion, and public goods that other nations rely on, such as stopping pirates, protecting global trade, or containing trans-national crime. Being able to step up in a pandemic and offer treatment and protective equipment is one such public good – the U.S., for instance, coordinated the global response to Ebola. The inability to offer these kinds of public goods leads to a loss of legitimacy, and gradually countries globally begin to reorient their choices towards a different order.”