Income inequality and COVID vaccination gaps

COVID-19 Pandemic disproportionately impacts low-income population groups around the world. The Pandemic has challenged policymakers for a renewed sense of urgency to rethink policies towards a more empathetic and equitable means to protect all society. When the industrialized world is preparing to open up businesses and government by gearing up vaccination, the low-income and developing countries are going for a lockdown as they await the supply of vaccines to help cope with the wrath of the Delta variants. The inequality of vaccine distribution has implications for post-pandemic recovery for the world.

The poster presentation will highlight the stories of the Pandemic around the world using the global COVID-19 database and highlight the challenges of public administration scholars to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The Covid-19 Pandemic is among the gravest global health and economic crises in history. By September 2021, it took more than 4.7 million lives and infected at least another 229 million, leaving many severely ill. It is the greatest threat to prosperity and well-being the world has encountered since the Great Depression. Vaccination is one of the primary ways of restricting the epidemic. However, a world without COVID-19 will not be possible until everyone has equal access to the vaccines. The inequity in vaccine distribution needs to be addressed with a coordinated action plan by the governments across the population spectrum to reach the target of 70% of herd immunity by mid-2022 as set by the World Health Organization.

The low income population disproportionately share high mortality due to COVID-19. This is also reflected at the global scale where low income countries share the brunt of death due to COVID.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said vaccine equity was “not rocket science, nor charity. It is smart public health and in everyone’s best interest.” (news.un.org)

For the first time since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, the global average SDG Index score for 2020 has decreased from the previous year: a decline driven to a large extent by increased poverty rates and unemployment following the outbreak of the COVID‑19 pandemic.

The "Darwinian Syndrome" of the survival of the fittest applies closely to COVID survival of the richest. The widening income disparity has proven to be at odds with health and achievement for the disadvantaged population (Tetzlaff, et al., 2020; Harowitz, et al., 2020). The Pandemic will push the lower income world population into a deep crisis unless there is a unified intervention for COVID response starting with vaccination and a temporary economic safety net for their survival. According to the World Economic Forum (2020), COVID could push half a billion people into poverty. Recent BBC poll (2020) highlights, "69% people non-OECD countries had their income affected due to the pandemic, compared to 45% of those living in OECD countries."

We are at a critical moment, because the poorest countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are facing economic and public-health emergencies that demand immediate action... Together, these countries represent nearly 70% of the world’s population and account for approximately one-third of global GDP. (World Economic Forum, 2021)

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World Economic Forum (2020, June 25). COVID-19: A global response to protect the world’s poor. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/a-covid-19-response-for-the-world-s-poor/

ESRI, ArcGIS. (2021, June 14). Sustainable Development Report 2021. ArcGIS StoryMaps. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5387a3d2041c4773b4b1d70d9f981b65

Horowitz, J. M., Igielnik, R., & Kochhar, R. (2020, May 30). Most Americans Say There Is Too Much Economic Inequality in the U.S., but Fewer Than Half Call It a Top Priority. Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/most-americans-say-there-is-too-much-economic-inequality-in-the-u-s-but-fewer-than-half-call-it-a-top-priority/

Leopold, L. (2020, July 28). COVID-19’s Class War. The American Prospect. https://prospect.org/coronavirus/covid-19-class-war-death-rates-income/

One COVID-19 lockdown for the rich, another for the poor. (2020, June 8). Hungry Cities. https://hungrycities.net/one-covid-19-lockdown-for-the-rich-another-for-the-poor/

Ritchie, H. (2020, March 5). Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations - Statistics and Research. Our World in Data.  https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations .

Sachs, J., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., Woelm, F. 2021. The Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainable Development Report 2021. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tetzlaff, F., Epping, J., Sperlich, S., & Tetzlaff, J. (2020). Widening income inequalities in life expectancy? Analysing time trends based on German health insurance data. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, jech-2019. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2019-212966

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. (2020). COVID-19 Map. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

The United Nations. (2020). THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development. https://sdgs.un.org/goals

UNDP. (2021, September 20). Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity. UNDP Covid-19 Data Futures Platform. https://data.undp.org/vaccine-equity/

WHO. (2021, September 2). COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 Vaccines. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/covid-19-vaccines