London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 24, 2025

Rich countries close their eyes to the global covid surge at their own peril

Rich countries close their eyes to the global covid surge at their own peril

The pandemic’s death toll is now being felt most gravely in developing nations. This virus is not done yet
Is there one pandemic, or two? That was a question being asked a year ago, when wealthy countries accounting for only 15% of the global population had 80% of the Covid deaths. Could it be that the rich world was more vulnerable, somehow, because its populations were older, or more individualistic, or had forgotten to be scared of infectious disease?

Even then, some were warning that the worst was yet to come, once the disease took hold in poorer countries. World Bank analysts Philip Schellekens and Diego Sourrouille, for example, predicted a “massive shift” in disease burden to the developing world. Just in terms of demography, they said, you’d expect those countries to account for around 70% of deaths. As things stand they account for a little over half of it, which is probably an underestimate due to variations in data quality – and the pandemic is far from over.

Last week saw more than 5.8 million new cases of Covid globally, the highest number yet. More than 3 million people have now died from Covid, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which also reports that infections and hospitalisations in those aged 25 to 59 are increasing at an alarming rate. “It took nine months to reach 1 million deaths, four months to reach 2 million, and three months to reach 3 million,” WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said last week.

The sharpest upticks in recent weeks have been seen in south-east Asia – driven in large part by India – and the eastern Mediterranean and western Pacific regions, but the situation is also very bad in Latin America. People who migrated to Brazil in search of work are now reported to be fleeing the humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding there.

Infection rates are still high in many wealthy countries – including the US and much of Europe – but the mood is more upbeat: as vaccines roll out, many people feel the worst is behind them. Some US states have rashly lifted their mask mandates. The British government gave the most optimistic signal it could think of earlier this month, when it reopened pubs. And Covid-19 is slipping down the headlines, reflecting not just fatigue at having to respect the rules, but fatigue at the very mention of the disease. Fear concentrates the mind, but fear is dissipating; we’d rather read about Tory sleaze, or the doomed European Super League.

Again, you could be forgiven for asking, is there one pandemic or two? Only now the question has an entirely different meaning. The tables have turned.

In reality, there was only ever one pandemic. We tend to think of it in terms of national impacts and responses, at best regional ones, but for it to make sense you have to stand back and look at it globally. For all its idiosyncrasies, Covid will stay true to type in at least one way: like pandemics throughout history, it will hammer the poorest hardest.

Depending on where you’re standing, there are genuine reasons to be cheerful. The vaccines are effective in mitigating the disease and there’s growing evidence that they slow its spread too. But their rollout is extremely uneven. A quarter of Americans have been fully vaccinated to date, compared with fewer than 2% of Ghanaians. An Israeli is 20 times more likely to have received a single vaccine dose than a Palestinian, and there are still countries that haven’t administered any.

There’s unevenness within countries too, in part due to vaccine hesitancy. A recent survey of US healthcare workers showed that 48% had yet to be vaccinated, and 18% didn’t intend to be. Partly because they have seen relatively few Covid deaths locally, people in Hong Kong are staying away from vaccine clinics – a manifestation of the so-called “prevention paradox”.

The recent increases in cases and deaths are partly due to the spread of new Covid variants. These are all more transmissible than the original form, first detected in China, and some of them are more lethal. There’s good reason to hope that the vaccines will continue to work against them – or can be updated to do so – but in the meantime the variants, combined with slow vaccine rollout, are pushing fragile health systems to breaking point.

Without oxygen, for example, it’s impossible to treat a severely ill Covid patient, but there’s a global shortage of the gas. In Peru, where hospitals are in crisis, Médecins Sans Frontières reports that “people in many cities queue overnight and sleep in the rough to fill up their oxygen tanks from the few working reservoirs, hoping to take care of their relatives at home”. When a health system is paralysed, non-Covid patients are unable to get treated too, and resources are sucked away from longer-term public health campaigns – meaning that the burden of diseases such as HIV and malaria may increase. Demography is not the only reason for the developing world’s continuing vulnerability, in other words.

The Covax facility, which was designed to offset vaccine nationalism, aims to get a first vaccine dose to at least 20% of the population of each participating country by the end of 2021 – though it now looks like it will fall short of that goal. Even if it hits its target, since less than a quarter of the global population is judged likely to have acquired immunity through natural infection to date, that will leave at least half of it susceptible to Covid in the short term.

The disease still mainly targets older people, and though rich countries tend to have proportionally more older people than poorer ones, in absolute terms there are far more elderly people in the developing world. India, for example, has around three times as many people aged 60 or older as Japan, though in terms of its population structure, Japan is considered the oldest country in the world. Burgeoning infection rates in the developing world therefore herald absolute, if not relative, carnage there.

We can still hope that the global death toll from Covid in 2021 will not exceed that of 2020 – as the vaccines do their work – even if it’s far from a given. But we can be confident that poorer countries will contribute most of this year’s Covid deaths. That thought alone should give us pause – and in addition we should remember that rich countries are not immune from what happens beyond their shores. Rampant Covid in countries such as India and Brazil will shape the evolution of the virus and could cause new, even more dangerous variants to emerge, which neither our borders nor our vaccines are guaranteed to keep out. That’s why it’s too early to rest on our laurels and why vaccine equity is so important – because this is a pandemic, meaning it’s global.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Porsche Reverses EV Strategy as New CEO Bets on Petrol and Hybrids
Singapore’s Prime Minister Warns of ‘Messy’ Transition to Post-American Global Order
Andreessen Horowitz Sets Sights on Ten-Billion-Dollar Fund for Tech Surge
US Administration Under President Donald Trump Reportedly Lifts Ban on Ukraine’s Use of Storm Shadow Missiles Against Russia
‘Frightening’ First Night in Prison for Sarkozy: Inmates Riot and Shout ‘Little Nicolas’
White House Announces No Imminent Summit Between Trump and Putin
US and Qatar Warn EU of Trade and Energy Risks from Tough Climate Regulation
Apple Challenges EU Digital Markets Act Crackdown in Landmark Court Battle
Nicolas Sarkozy begins five-year prison term at La Santé in Paris
Japan stocks surge to record as Sanae Takaichi becomes Prime Minister
This Is How the 'Heist of the Century' Was Carried Out at the Louvre in Seven Minutes: France Humiliated as Crown with 2,000 Diamonds Vanishes
China Warns UK of ‘Consequences’ After Delay to London Embassy Approval
France’s Wealthy Shift Billions to Luxembourg and Switzerland Amid Tax and Political Turmoil
"Sniper Position": Observation Post Targeting 'Air Force One' Found Before Trump’s Arrival in Florida
Shouting Match at the White House: 'Trump Cursed, Threw Maps, and Told Zelensky – "Putin Will Destroy You"'
Windows’ Own ‘Siri’ Has Arrived: You Can Now Talk to Your Computer
Thailand and Singapore Investigate Cambodian-Based Prince Group as U.S. and U.K. Sanctions Unfold
‘No Kings’ Protests Inflate Numbers — But History Shows Nations Collapse Without Strong Executive Power
Chinese Tech Giants Halt Stablecoin Launches After Beijing’s Regulatory Intervention
Manhattan Jury Holds BNP Paribas Liable for Enabling Sudanese Government Abuses
Trump Orders Immediate Release of Former Congressman George Santos After Commuting Prison Sentence
S&P Downgrades France’s Credit Rating, Citing Soaring Debt and Political Instability
Ofcom Rules BBC’s Gaza Documentary ‘Materially Misleading’ Over Narrator’s Hamas Ties
Diane Keaton’s Cause of Death Revealed as Pneumonia, Family Confirms
Former Lostprophets Frontman Ian Watkins Stabbed to Death in British Prison
"The Tsunami Is Coming, and It’s Massive": The World’s Richest Man Unveils a New AI Vision
Outsider, Heroine, Trailblazer: Diane Keaton Was Always a Little Strange — and Forever One of a Kind
Dramatic Development in the Death of 'Mango' Founder: Billionaire's Son Suspected of Murder
Two Years of Darkness: The Harrowing Testimonies of Israeli Hostages Emerging From Gaza Captivity
EU Moves to Use Frozen Russian Assets to Buy U.S. Weapons for Ukraine
Europe Emerges as the Biggest Casualty in U.S.-China Rare Earth Rivalry
HSBC Confronts Strategic Crossroads as NAB Seeks Only Retail Arm in Australia Exit
U.S. Chamber Sues Trump Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Shenzhen Expo Spotlights China’s Quantum Step in Semiconductor Self-Reliance
China Accelerates to the Forefront in Global Nuclear Fusion Race
Yachts, Private Jets, and a Picasso Painting: Exposed as 'One of the Largest Frauds in History'
Australia’s Wedgetail Spies Aid NATO Response as Russian MiGs Breach Estonian Airspace
McGowan Urges Chalmers to Cut Spending Over Tax Hike to Close $20 Billion Budget Gap
Victoria Orders Review of Transgender Prison Placement Amid Safety Concerns for Female Inmates
U.S. Treasury Mobilises New $20 Billion Debt Facility to Stabilise Argentina
French Business Leaders Decry Budget as Macron’s Pro-Enterprise Promise Undermined
Trump Claims Modi Pledged India Would End Russian Oil Imports Amid U.S. Tariff Pressure
Surging AI Startup Valuations Fuel Bubble Concerns Among Top Investors
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
×