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Part of the global uncertainty is from a failure of global leadership to end the pandemic. Better coordination might not have prevented the rise of the Omicron variant, but traditional global leaders such as the United States and the other G-7 nations, along with aspiring global or regional leaders such as China or those of the Quad, have failed to facilitate the type of cooperation necessary to bring the pandemic to an end.
To end the pandemic the world needs to slow the ability of COVID-19 to replicate, but vaccine distribution has been uneven. High-income countries such as the United States, the members of the European Union and South Korea have purchased a majority of the world's vaccines, limiting the ability to vaccinate other populations. According to Our World in Data, 55 percent of the world's population has received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, but only 6.2 percent in low-income countries have received a single dose.
Addressing vaccine inequality is in the interest of high-income countries, as well as the populations of countries that have yet to receive sufficient vaccines. The need for travel restrictions and lockdowns ultimately reduces economic activity. According to one academic paper by Cem Cakmakli and his co-authors, 49 percent of the global economic losses from the pandemic will be borne by high-income countries this year even if they had been able to achieve universal domestic vaccination. Ultimately, domestic vaccination is insufficient to both end the need for restrictions and restore the global economy to normal.
The cost of vaccinating the global population is relatively small compared to the economic costs from the pandemic. According to the OECD, the world has spent $10 trillion to stabilize the global economy, but has failed to provide the $50 billion needed to vaccinate the world's population.
South Korea is among the countries that are well placed to take on a greater role in ending vaccine inequality. It has managed the pandemic relatively well and its economy has performed better than most. South Korea also has one of the world's top 10 biopharmaceutical manufacturing sectors, positioning it to play a larger role during the pandemic.
The Moon administration has worked to build on these advantages. In May, South Korea and the United States agreed to cooperate on vaccine production, which has resulted in agreements for Samsung Biologics to serve as a "finish and fill" partner for Moderna and SK Bioscience to produce the Novavax vaccine. There have also been discussions with the United States about how to improve supply chains for the production of vaccines. The Moon administration has also begun to make vaccine donations abroad and is putting in place plans to make South Korea a vaccine hub.
There are three areas, however, where South Korea must take additional steps to help bring the pandemic to a quicker conclusion. South Korea has pledged only $210 million to COVAX, the global effort to vaccinate middle- and low-income countries. This is only slightly more than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged. Increasing South Korea's contribution to COVAX would help address the needs of low-income countries for vaccines and move the world closer to ending the pandemic.
Additional financial resources are important, but improving vaccine production capacity will also be critical. Whether it is in hard-hit areas, such as Africa, that lack vaccines or helping smaller vaccine producers in Southeast Asia expand their production capacity, South Korea can play an important role formally in helping to expand capacity or informally in identifying potential partners that could enhance these efforts.
South Korea can also play a role in filling potential supply chain gaps for vaccine producers abroad to ensure that they have the inputs they need to produce vaccines. The goal would not be to duplicate or undermine existing efforts of the United States or others, but rather to bring countries and companies together to fill existing gaps in the supply chain and production capacity, including vaccine storage and transportation networks.
South Korea has taken significant steps to address the pandemic domestically and improve vaccine production, but until a sufficient portion of the world's population is vaccinated the gains South Korea has made could be reversed by a future variant. South Korea has the capacity to help fill some of these gaps and lessen vaccine inequality. If the world's traditional leaders are unable to fill this void, South Korea should play a larger role in ending the pandemic.
Troy Stangarone (ts@keia.org) is the senior director of congressional affairs and trade at the Korea Economic Institute.
