From shame to action: ask the UK to change course

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Hi John,

Last night we held a funeral procession in Westminster, calling for the British government to stop blocking efforts to suspend Covid-19 vaccine patents. On what we called a Day of Shame for the UK, we carried coffins to Downing Street to show Boris Johnson and his government the human cost of global vaccine inequality. Meanwhile, in Edinburgh protestors gathered outside the UK government offices.

This is a vital moment for activists and decision makers, with the latest World Trade Organisation meeting to discuss whether to waive patents taking place today and tomorrow.

Can you help put pressure on the UK to change course by emailing the government now?

Take action

Funeral procession outside Downing Street

Activists take action outside the UK government offices in Edinburgh

We need to ramp up the pressure on Boris Johnson’s government and show his current approach is costing lives every day. Since India and South Africa called for the waiver one year ago, 3.7m people have died of Covid-19. The UK is one of the last remaining governments to block the waiver.

The government sees vaccine donations as the key solution to this vaccine apartheid, but this approach has failed before and is failing again. Countries all over the world are ready to step in with their own solution - a single factory in Bangladesh says it could produce twice as many vaccines as the entire global Covax donation mechanism has managed to deliver. Vaccine patents are stopping this from happening. This has to change.

3 things you can do today

1. Write to the UK government and WTO representative to demand patents are suspended

Email the government

2. Tweet @BorisJohnson and his ministers @TrussLiz and @AnnieTrev to demand a TRIPS waiver

Re-tweet our message

3. If you use social media, please share our photos from last night’s protest

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share on Instagram stories

The WTO talks starting today are a chance for the UK to change its course from favouring pharma profit over people’s lives. We must demand change now.

Solidarity,

Tim Bierley
Campaigner at Global Justice Now

PS. Some media coverage of the protest:

Government urged to back vaccine patent waiver as protesters march on Downing Street, The Independent, 12 October 2021
In pictures: Campaigners carry coffins during protest in Whitehall, Sky News, 12 October 2021
Activists carry coffins down Whitehall ahead of Covid-19 vaccine patent talks, Evening Standard, 12 October 2021

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