Vaccine wars and the darknet’s pandemic recruitment boom
Welcome to the Infodemic and, if you just joined us, thank you for signing up! We are tracking how disinformation surrounding the coronavirus crisis is reshaping our world. Below are the narratives, both real and fake, that have grabbed our team’s attention and deserve yours.
It’s been another tough week for the vaccine that was designed to end the pandemic. The Oxford University-developed AstraZeneca shot is cheaper and easier to transport than anything else on the market and more than 20 million people around the world have already received it. But, just as it was about to be cleared in the U.S., health officials said that the data the company has provided them with isn’t good enough. This major blow follows another: a temporary suspension of AstraZeneca in Europe over blood clot concerns earlier this month. The European Medicines Agency has since confirmed that AstraZeneca is safe, but trust has taken a hit. A poll published by YouGov, a British polling firm, shows that the majority of people in some of the biggest European Union countries — including Germany, France, Spain and Italy — now believe it to be unsafe.
Large numbers of people may not want the AstraZeneca vaccine, but governments do. And they are fighting about it. This week the EU threatened to block the export to the U.K. of vaccines from the company’s plant in the Netherlands. India, which produces the vaccine for much of the developing world, is now also limiting planned exports, owing to surging cases in the country. This could seriously undermine global vaccination efforts.
Covid-19 and vaccine diplomacy loom large over today’s virtual Mercosur summit. As the leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay gather to commemorate the Latin American trade bloc’s 30th anniversary, pandemic politics will be hard to escape. Paraguay’s president is on thin ice after surviving an impeachment attempt over vaccine shortages and his handling of the coronavirus crisis. The country’s quest for vaccines has also been complicated by geopolitics, with Beijing offering Chinese-made vaccines if it breaks diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Brazil’s healthcare system is being pushed to the point of collapse by an explosion in Covid-19 cases. Argentina is on the eve of a second coronavirus wave, as delays stymie the country’s vaccine rollout. Meanwhile, infections are also peaking in Uruguay. Lots to look out for, and we’ll be keeping an eye on it all.