Poor and middle-income nations, largely unable to compete in the open market, rely on a complex vaccine sharing scheme called Covax. A collaboration of international health organizations, Covax was designed to avoid the inequities of a free-market free-for-all. First is whether countries like South Africa, which is supporting trials by four drugmakers, should be guaranteed doses if the trials succeed. And at any rate, such an arrangement would be ethically murky, since it would punish countries that participate in unsuccessful trials. They waited outside for hours, under the shade of a gum tree, for a chance to enroll in a clinical trial of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Source: New York Times December 28, 2020 20:48 UTC