| Finding therapies, vaccines and tests for the coronavirus has already cost a lot of money, and the bill is going to grow. The European Union, with the World Health Organization, this week formally starts a previously announced drive to raise $8 billion. It’s only the latest bid for support. The Wellcome Trust has also highlighted the need for billions of dollars, and a coalition backing a number of experimental vaccines has said it needs about $2 billion.
After the costs to develop vaccines and ramp up manufacturing, there’s the huge challenge of actually getting shots to people. The cost to vaccinate billions of people and secure the doses needed to meet global demand could be as much as $25 billion, Joe Cerrell, managing director of global policy and advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told Bloomberg.
The first human trials in the U.K. test a potential vaccine at Oxford University.
Photographer: Pool/Oxford University
Some may ask, where is all this funding supposed to come from? Even if some of the initiatives overlap, the billions of dollars countries and global health groups are pursuing in the fight against Covid-19 sounds like a massive sum. Yet it pales in comparison with the ultimate price the world will encounter as lockdowns continue across many major economies.
The appeals from the EU and WHO suggest a significant amount of cash is still needed—and raise the question of why there’s still such a large funding gap.
Bloomberg Economics has estimated that, in an optimistic scenario, the cost of lost output from the pandemic may be more than $6 trillion. Wall Street banks have warned that the world faces an economic hit over the next two years that’s greater than the annual output of Japan, Bloomberg News reported last month.
With governments already doling out trillions in rescue funds, the money required to develop and deliver vaccines, treatments, testing and other antiviral weapons may sound like a lot now. But to restore some order to the world, it will seem like a small price to pay.—James Paton |