{"id":74841,"date":"2021-05-27T15:39:36","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T19:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/?p=74841"},"modified":"2021-05-27T15:39:39","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T19:39:39","slug":"forget-geopolitics-save-lives-with-vaccines-ibero-american-experts-tell-atlantic-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/blog\/2021\/05\/27\/forget-geopolitics-save-lives-with-vaccines-ibero-american-experts-tell-atlantic-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget Geopolitics: Save Lives With Vaccines, Ibero-American Experts Tell Atlantic Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:18px\"><strong>Forget Geopolitics, Save Lives With Vaccines, Ibero-American Experts Tell Atlantic Council<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">May 26 (EIRNS)\u2014On May 24, the Atlantic Council sponsored a webinar \u00abThe Race to Vaccinate: Chinese Vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean,\u00bb including Guyana\u2019s Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony as its special guest, and a panel of three commentators including Chile\u2019s former ambassador to China, Jorge Heine, epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Bouey of the RAND Corporation, and Ernesto Londo\u00f1o, the <em>New York Times<\/em> correspondent in Brazil. Although the Atlantic Council has eagerly participated in the recent media and think tank rug-chewing about China\u2019s vaccines being just a \u00abcynical\u00bb political maneuver to increase its influence In Latin America and the Caribbean, moderator Pepe Zhang had to handle the discussion in an even-handed way\u2014unable to directly challenge the reality that China\u2019s vaccines are savings lives in the region, while the U.S. is absent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That point was driven home in spades in response to one of Zhang\u2019s carefully-constructed questions, about whether China\u2019s \u00abvaccine diplomacy\u00bb represents \u00aba new avenue for engagement\u00bb in the region. Ambassador Heine quickly dispensed with the narrative coming from Western media and Washington think tanks that China is using its vaccines for political leverage and \u00abdomination,\u00bb stating that the issue here is timing. Chinese vaccines come \u00abnow\u00bb to Latin America whereas the U.S. and European countries are hoarding and talking about 2022 or 2023. That\u2019s no good, he said, describing as absurd the discussion in the Western media comparing the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine to China\u2019s Sinopharm, whose efficacy is reportedly 70%. \u00abThis is rich country club talk,\u00bb he pronounced. The perception of Chinese vaccines in the region is very high, Heine added. Latin America is \u00abground zero\u00bb for COVID cases and deaths, and how the crisis is handled \u00abwill be remembered for a very long time,\u00bb he warned. So, the U.S. should get going, and start providing vaccines <em>fast<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While initially offering a factual report on the situation in Guyana and the surrounding region, Dr. Anthony made the same point. China had donated large quantities of PPE and lab equipment as well as 20,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine. (Anglo-American media lie that China never donates anything. India donated 800,000 doses. USAID offered a grant, \u00abbut no vaccines.\u00bb The situation in the region is now critical, he warned, with a surge in cases and deaths in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad &amp; Tobago. Guyana and the region have also been driven into deep economic crises. The bottom line, he said, is that there aren\u2019t enough vaccines. That is the case across the Caribbean, he underscored, where vaccination rates are extremely low. He pointed out that it\u2019s easier to store Sinopharm vaccines because they don\u2019t require the same cold-chain capacity as Pfizer. President Biden has donated 4,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to Mexico and Canada and is offering Southeast Asia more, but, Dr. Anthony added, \u00abwe\u2019re in the U.S.\u2019s backyard, and with more vaccines, we can change the situation.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even the <em>New York Times<\/em> correspondent, Ernesto Londo\u00f1o, noted that while the U.S. warns that dealing with China \u00abcomes at a price,\u00bb the reality is that China responded to many countries in their \u00abhour of need\u2026they showed up first and scaled a victory,\u00bb while the U.S. was hoarding vaccines. And when asked whether there were \u00abgeopolitical competition\u00bb between China and the U.S. in the region, the RAND Corporation\u2019s Dr. Jennifer Bouey, a Chinese-American epidemiologist who has extensive experience working in China, responded that the current situation could offer an opportunity for the U.S. and China to work together, as they had done in the past, collaborating on SARS, Avian flu, and Ebola to \u00abbuild a public good.\u00bb So, she said, the precedent is there. In concluding, Zhang asked each participant to express a final message, to which Heine said: Get U.S. vaccines to Latin America ASAP; Londo\u00f1o, in the face of enormous loss, help must come soon; Anthony: get the vaccines in ASAP. Dr. Bouey: U.S., Chinese and Latin American scientists can work together in resolving the crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forget Geopolitics, Save Lives With Vaccines, Ibero-American Experts Tell Atlantic Council May 26 (EIRNS)\u2014On May 24, the Atlantic Council sponsored a webinar \u00abThe Race to Vaccinate: Chinese Vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean,\u00bb including Guyana\u2019s Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony as its special guest, and a panel of three commentators including Chile\u2019s former ambassador [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":74842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[640,643,520,505,508,639,634,702,641],"tags":[842],"class_list":["post-74841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-covid-19","category-updates-development","category-updates","category-updates-geopolitics","category-global-diplomacy","category-healthcare","category-healthcare-updates-development","category-united-states","tag-lang-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74853,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74841\/revisions\/74853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}