Omicron shows we must vaccinate all

News that a new, worrying variant of Covid-19 had been discovered in South Africa will have prompted a natural response among many of us: ‘‘When will this end?’’ But we can’t say we weren’t warned these setbacks would come. Virologists warned that if the world only managed to vaccinate those in its richest nations, an enormous pool of people would be left vulnerable. The virus would tear through the unvaccinated, mutating along the way.

Yet even before vaccinations had started in earnest, vast numbers of doses had already been divided between the world’s richest nations. Many countries were left to fend for themselves.

According to the Our World In Data project, the world overall is only 42 per cent vaccinated. Yet until we can vaccinate every country to a level close to our own, our chances of peace from this virus are greatly reduced.

We do not know if – or the extent to which – the new variant will bypass our immunity, and the vaccines. But the latest developments do underscore that our masks, handwashing and other precautions continue to make sense.

The latest developments also invite us to think about the world we want to live in. With Covid as with many other matters, to fully help ourselves we must also look to help others as well.