The United Kingdom, which the EU compared to a “speedboat” in vaccine development, has committed to giving 80 per cent of its spare doses to the third world once all adults in Britain have been vaccinated.
Hundreds of millions of vaccines will be sent to the worldwide distribution programme Covax, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged on Friday at a virtual meeting of the G7. The British will give out 20 per cent of their doses directly, including possibly to the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the struggling European Union, as earlier suggested.
“The development of viable coronavirus vaccines offers the tantalising prospect of a return to normality,” Prime Minister Johnson will tell the world’s top seven global economy nations, according to The Times. “But we must not rest on our laurels. As leaders of the G7, we must say today: never again.”
The teleconference between the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and representatives from the European Council and European Commission is a precursor to the in-person summit in Cornwall, England, in June.
Britain has ordered 407 million doses of seven types of coronavirus vaccine — far more than needed to innoculate its 66 million citizens. The prime minister has made the commitment not only on moral but practical grounds, to get the virus under control globally to reduce the spread.
“The UK is clear that as a world leader, we have a moral and national interest in making this happen, which is why we are committing to share the majority of any future surplus doses with Covax to support the countries who need them most,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.
Britain’s generosity comes as a result of the country having such a large quantity of spare doses available, thanks to the British cutting loose from the European Union’s medical agency after Brexit. Prime Minister Johnson took a gamble in investing in pharmaceutical projects early on in the pandemic, which ultimately paid off. On December 2nd, the United Kingdom became the first Western country to have certified for use a vaccine against the Chinese coronavirus.
The EU, meanwhile, demanded that all its member-states relinquish their autonomy in vaccine procurement and hand over responsibility to Brussels in a system that was plagued with bureaucracy and delays and resulted in the British at one point having vaccinated more people than the entire EU27 combined.
Despite France’s own struggles to inoculate its citizens, globalist President Emmanuel Macron, with the support of Germany’s Angela Merkel, has demanded that developed countries donate five per cent of their stock immediately, whether their populations are protected or not.
Julia Hartley-Brewer of talkRADIO asked the House of Commons Defence Select Committee chairman Tobias Ellwood why the British taxpayer should be bailing out the world with coronavirus vaccines, when the G7 should be demanding China foot the bill.
Mr Elwood responded without any hesitation — in tacit acknowledgement that communist China was at fault for the global spread of the virus — saying: “Yes, absolutely right. This is the sort of collective demand we can make.
“What we’ve seen with China is that they pluck countries off one by one. Australia dared to suggest that there should be an investigation into the outbreak itself. Who was Patient Zero? Where was Ground Zero? And they had tariffs imposed on them.
“If we’re going to stand up to China, we’re going to have to do it collectively, and the one body that now has that power is the G7, empowered if you take it even further to a G10.”
The committee chairman suggested that Britain’s move was a form of vaccine diplomacy, saying: “I do agree with you. There will be taxpayers saying, ‘Why should we do this?’ Only if it’s brought up and we step forward and show an example can we get other nations, including groups of nations such as the EU, to follow us.”
Ms Hartley-Brewer, however, expressed doubt the G7 would try to hold China to account, responding: “Never going to happen, is it? China is going to get away with it, and we’ll just go back to normal business.”
Last April a poll found that nearly three-quarters of Britons thought that China was to blame for the coronavirus pandemic, with 83 per cent wanting Chain to face an inquiry and 71 per cent wanting the communist state to pay damages to the rest of the world if found guilty of a cover-up.