- Position‹2 of 2
- A vaccine will not erase the changes to our daily lives
From logistics to anti-vaxxers. How the vaccine will be provided and how long this will take will play a large part in what we consider the new normal. Can we all be vaccinated?
The argument
With a vaccine on the way, governments concerns now turn to who will get it first. Bidding for the new vaccine will likely put many poorer nations, and those with less influence, at a disadvantage. Trump has already contacted companies in Germany who are developing a vaccine. His aim was to buy exclusive access to the vaccine they are developing. Every nation will need doses of a vaccine in the near future, and this move was seen extremely unfavourably in Europe. German politicians have been outspoken about their disapproval, claiming that no country should be permitted to buy exclusive access to a vaccine. But even once a nation has the vaccine, there will be difficulty of distribution. Who gets the vaccine first? How do we administer it? The British manufacturer AstraZeneca has agreed to supply 100 million does to the UK. They are also looking to supply up to 2 billion doses globally. Governments all across the globe are preparing to implement what will likely be the largest ever vaccination campaign. This will require hiring large numbers of medical staff, strict timetables and additional facilities to cope with the large numbers of people coming to receive an injection. Talk of a vaccine has also seen backlash from anti-vaxxer communities. In 2019, their campaigns and reluctance to receive necessary injections lead to the largest measles outbreak in the US seen in a generation. Now, their discourse targets a COVID-19 vaccine. In May, a survey found that 23% of Americans do not want to receive this vaccine. This is troubling news. In order to stop the epidemic and return to some semblance of normality, we will all need to cooperate and this vaccine will be the best first step.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Governments have been planning this eventuality for months now. There are plans in place and the WHO has strategies it has implemented previously, though at smaller scales. Furthermore, the UK government is trialing a city wide COVID-19 test in Liverpool. This mass scale testing will likely bring to light problems they may encounter with mass scale vaccination.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Allocation disputes and logistics are difficulties of the rollout, not reasons that changes to daily life persist after it — the premise establishes that the campaign is hard and treats that as settling what follows. The counter notes that governments and the WHO had been planning for exactly this, so difficulty is not failure. [Rejecting P2] A stated intention in a May survey is a weak guide to behaviour a year later, and the figure comes without a source or a wording. Refusal at that level would slow coverage rather than prevent it, and the argument's own closing line — that the vaccine is the best first step back to normality — sits against the conclusion it is filed under.