What the Covid-19 inquiry must cover

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Hi John,

A public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic is coming. The inquiry will analyse how the UK government approached this public health crisis that has cost over 150,000 lives here in the UK and over 5.6 million worldwide – with the true figures likely much higher. The inquiry will also look into the lessons we need to learn from the pandemic.

Any inquiry that has a hope of giving us some answers must include a thorough investigation of the government's failure to address global vaccine inequality. Right now the chair of the inquiry is drawing up its terms of reference – can you join our call for global vaccine access to be included?

Sign our letter to the Covid Inquiry Chair

We know that the government has made callous and dangerous decisions at every stage of the pandemic. It has doggedly hoarded vaccine doses even as countries in the global south struggled to vaccinate their health workers.

Against all warnings, the UK has insisted that donations alone will solve vaccine inequity. But one year into the pandemic it has donated a feeble 30 million doses, while binning hundreds of thousands or even millions. Even as Boris Johnson’s favoured policies have proved a limp failure, the government has stood in the way of the structural changes that countries in the global south have put forward as an alternative.

If the UK had supported a patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines when it was proposed in October 2020, dozens more vaccine factories could be up and running around the world today. Vaccine inequity in the global south might be a thing of the past. The government’s decision to back pharmaceutical company’s Covid monopolies over public health has prolonged the pandemic. These failures have also led to countless unnecessary deaths.

The enormous resulting disparity in access to Covid-19 vaccines globally has provided the conditions for new variants to emerge which have further restricted global recovery and wrought havoc in the NHS. Meanwhile, those with long-term health conditions have been hit with a double whammy of having to remain in isolation for longer and being less able to access NHS services they rely on.

We believe no inquiry into the UK's pandemic response will be complete without taking into account its failure to address the crisis of vaccine access internationally.

Please add your name to this open letter to Baroness Hallett, the chair of the Covid Inquiry, and share our call.

Support the call to include vaccine inequity

Thank you for your support,
Alena Ivanova,
Campaigner at Global Justice Now

MORE INFO
1. Prime Minister announces Covid-19 Inquiry Chair, 15 December 2021
2. UK Covid-19 Inquiry website

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