Lawmakers dropped nearly all funding for curbing the coronavirus beyond U.S. borders. Experts say that's short-sighted.
“We’ve made that mistake several times in this pandemic,” Morrison said. “And we may be making that mistake again.”
Instead, some organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation have pushed for officials to “refocus vaccination goals away from vaccinating 70% of all adults by summer to vaccinating 90% of those most at-risk in each country,” in what some critics say is an implicit acknowledgment of the world’s repeated failures to share vaccines fairly. Others point out there shouldn’t be competing vaccine targets and that health authorities simply need to do more, rather than adjusting global goals.
However, others warned the U.S. decision set an unfortunate precedent for global cooperation to end the pandemic at a time when fresh concerns likePresident Biden originally planned to convene a virtual summit in the first quarter of this year to keep international efforts on track, but no event has been scheduled.