JOHANNESBURG: If the United Nations was created from the ashes of World War II, what will be born from the global crisis of COVID-19?
Many world leaders at this week’s virtual UN summit hope it will be a vaccine made available and affordable to all countries, rich and poor. But with the US, China and Russia opting out of a collaborative effort to develop and distribute a vaccine, and some rich nations striking deals with pharmaceutical companies to secure millions of potential doses, the UN pleas are plentiful but likely in vain.
“Are people to be left to die?” Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, a COVID-19 survivor, said of the uncertain way forward.
More than 150 countries have joined COVAX, in which richer countries agree to buy into potential vaccines and help finance access for poorer ones. But the absence of Washington, Beijing and Moscow means the response to a health crisis unlike any other in the UN’s 75 years is short of truly being global. Instead, the three powers have made vague pledges of sharing any vaccine they develop, likely after helping their own citizens first.
This week’s UN gathering could serve as a wake-up call, said Gayle Smith, president of the ONE Campaign, a nonprofit fighting preventable disease that’s developing scorecards to measure how the world’s most powerful nations are contributing to vaccine equity.
“It’s not enough for only some G20 countries to realize that an equitable vaccine is the key to ending this virus and reopening the global economy,” she said.
With weeks remaining before a deadline for countries to join COVAX, which is co-led by the UN’s World Health Organization, many heads of state are using the UN meeting as a high-profile chance to wheedle, persuade and even shame.
Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, pointed out the illusory nature of borders and wealth: “The virus has taught us that we are all at risk, and there is no special protection for the rich or a particular class.”
The president of the COVID-free Pacific island nation of Palau, Tommy Remengesau Jr., warned against selfishness: “Vaccine hoarding will harm us all.”
And Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, appealed to the universal desire for a return to normal: “Ensuring equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics will speed up the end of the pandemic for everyone.”
Just two days into nearly 200 speeches by world leaders, it was clear the urgent need for a vaccine would be mentioned by almost everyone. Considering the mind-popping challenges ahead, that’s no surprise.
“We’ve never dealt with a situation where 7.8 billion people in the world are needing a vaccine at almost the same time,” John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this month.
That has led to difficult questions: Who will get vaccine doses first? Who is making private deals to get them? This week’s speeches make clear that such questions have existential meaning.
The vaccine quest must not be a “purely mercantile act,” Iraq said. Nor “an issue of competition,” Turkey said.
“We must take the politics out of the vaccine,” Kazakhstan said. “We need true globalization of compassion,” Slovakia said.
The Dominican Republic deployed all-caps in a statement: “WE DEMAND this vaccine be available to all human beings on the planet.” More gently, Mozambique warned that “nationalism and isolationism in the face of a pandemic are, as far as we are concerned, a prescription for failure.”
No matter their reputation at home or on the global stage, leaders are finding a shred of common ground as the world nears a staggering 1 million confirmed deaths from the pandemic.
“The COVID-19 vaccine must be considered a global public good. Let us be clear on this,” said Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres kicked off the General Assembly by declaring in an interview with the UN’s media arm: “To think that we can preserve the rich people, and let the poor people suffer, is a stupid mistake.”
It’s not clear if the world leaders’ remarks, delivered not in a diplomatic scrum at UN headquarters but in videos recorded from national capitals, will make a difference. Health experts, activists and others anxiously watching the issue raised a collective eyebrow.
“It’s important we continue to be making these speeches, but ultimately, speeches alone won’t have an effect if there are no real measures put in place to make sure poor countries, and within them the poorest of poor, have access” to the vaccine, said Tendai Mafuma with the South Africa-based social justice group Section 27. It’s part of a coalition pressing to make medicines more affordable and accessible.
South Africa, along with many African countries, knows the deadly consequences of having to wait. Health experts say 12 million Africans died during the decade it took for affordable HIV drugs to reach the continent.
Mafuma’s countryman Shabir Madhi, lead researcher on a clinical trial in South Africa of the vaccine that Oxford University is developing with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, was a bit more optimistic. That most of the world’s richest countries have joined COVAX “is promising,” he said.
But whether this week’s impassioned speeches at the UN will make any difference, Madhi said, is still “difficult to tell.”
‘Are people to be left to die?’ Vaccine pleas fill UN summit
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‘Are people to be left to die?’ Vaccine pleas fill UN summit
- Many world leaders at this week’s virtual UN summit hope vaccine will be made available and affordable to all countries, rich and poor
Reference to Trump’s impeachments is removed from the display of his Smithsonian photo portrait
- For now, references to Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton being impeached in 1868 and 1998, respectively, remain as part of their portrait labels, as does President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation as a result of the Watergate scandal
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s photo portrait display at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has had references to his two impeachments removed, the latest apparent change at the collection of museums he has accused of bias as he asserts his influence over how official presentations document US history.
The wall text, which summarized Trump’s first presidency and noted his 2024 comeback victory, was part of the museum’s “American Presidents” exhibition. The description had been placed alongside a photograph of Trump taken during his first term. Now, a different photo appears without any accompanying text block, though the text was available online. Trump was the only president whose display in the gallery, as seen Sunday, did not include any extended text.
The White House did not say whether it sought any changes. Nor did a Smithsonian statement in response to Associated Press questions. But Trump ordered in August that Smithsonian officials review all exhibits before the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. The Republican administration said the effort would “ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”
Trump’s original “portrait label,” as the Smithsonian calls it, notes Trump’s Supreme Court nominations and his administration’s development of COVID-19 vaccines. That section concludes: “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials.”
Then the text continues: “After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mounted a historic comeback in the 2024 election. He is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland (1837– 1908) to have won a nonconsecutive second term.”
Asked about the display, White House spokesman Davis Ingle celebrated the new photograph, which shows Trump, brow furrowed, leaning over his Oval Office desk. Ingle said it ensures Trump’s “unmatched aura ... will be felt throughout the halls of the National Portrait Gallery.”
The portrait was taken by White House photographer Daniel Torok, who is credited in the display that includes medallions noting Trump is the 45th and 47th president. Similar numerical medallions appear alongside other presidents’ painted portraits that also include the more extended biographical summaries such as what had been part of Trump’s display.
Sitting presidents are represented by photographs until their official paintings are commissioned and completed.
Ingle did not answer questions about whether Trump or a White House aide, on his behalf, asked for anything related to the portrait label.
The gallery said in a statement that it had previously rotated two photographs of Trump from its collection before putting up Torok’s work.
“The museum is beginning its planned update of the America’s Presidents gallery which will undergo a larger refresh this Spring,” the gallery statement said. “For some new exhibitions and displays, the museum has been exploring quotes or tombstone labels, which provide only general information, such as the artist’s name.”
For now, references to Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton being impeached in 1868 and 1998, respectively, remain as part of their portrait labels, as does President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation as a result of the Watergate scandal.
And, the gallery statement noted, “The history of Presidential impeachments continues to be represented in our museums, including the National Museum of American History.”
Trump has made clear his intentions to shape how the federal government documents US history and culture. He has offered an especially harsh assessment of how the Smithsonian and other museums have featured chattel slavery as a seminal variable in the nation’s development but also taken steps to reshape how he and his contemporary rivals are depicted.
In the months before his order for a Smithsonian review, he fired the head archivist of the National Archives and said he was firing the National Portrait Gallery’s director, Kim Sajet, as part of his overhaul. Sajet maintained the backing of the Smithsonian’s governing board, but she ultimately resigned.
At the White House, Trump has designed a notably partisan and subjective “Presidential Walk of Fame” featuring gilded photographs of himself and his predecessors — with the exception of Biden, who is represented by an autopen — along with plaques describing their presidencies.
The White House said at the time that Trump himself was a primary author of the plaques. Notably, Trump’s two plaques praise the 45th and 47th president as a historically successful figure while those under Biden’s autopen stand-in describe the 46th executive as “by far, the worst President in American History” who “brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”
