At the call of the Eu­ro­pean Union, many coun­tries, kings, Gates Foun­da­tion and singer Madonna pitched in to con­tribute $8 bil­lion to fund a COVID-19 vac­cine. The United States of Amer­ica stayed away from the fundraiser, China par­tic­i­pated but con­tribut­ing noth­ing and WHO lead­er­ship was also there. How these funds will be used and how much to which coun­try is not clear? The con­ta­gion is stalk­ing us with the in­stinct of a nat­ural killer and we are wit­ness­ing a very im­por­tant shift in the ter­rain of su­per­power ri­valry on de­vel­op­ing a vac­cine, pre­scrib­ing drug Remde­sivir and us­age of 5G tech­nol­ogy opines Delhi Uni­ver­sity As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor Ku­mar San­jay Singh.

UNTIL LATE LAST YEAR, THE IM­PEND­ING ROLL­OUT OF 5G in­fra­struc­ture was a key bat­tle­ground for con­trol over the in­dus­tries of the fu­ture be­tween the United States and China.

With dra­mat­i­cally higher data trans­fer speeds and de­creased la­tency, 5G car­ried the promise of rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing all spheres of daily life: from self-dri­ving ve­hi­cles to health­care, to the in­ter­net, the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of in­dus­trial pro­duc­tion processes and smart cities. For the first time in mod­ern his­tory, China was in a prime po­si­tion to lead the world in the roll­out of a po­ten­tially game-chang­ing tech­nol­ogy. This prospect caused fierce push­back from Wash­ing­ton.

With the COVID-19 in­fes­ta­tion, all this has changed. An in­tense ri­valry is build­ing up, fu­elling a scram­ble for an ef­fec­tive vac­cine. Once again, we are wit­ness­ing a bat­tle royale be­ing waged be­tween USA and China.

In­equitable ac­cess to the vac­cine be­ing the cor­ner­stone of the emerg­ing world or­der; the phrase, “How the other half dies!” will ac­quire a strange poignance.

The con­tro­versy around Remde­sivir is symp­to­matic of the brew­ing ri­valry. While An­thony Fauci, the Na­tional In­sti­tute for Al­lergy and In­fec­tious Dis­eases di­rec­tor, said a U.S. gov­ern­ment-run trial met its over­all tar­get, full de­tails haven’t been pub­lished. At the same time, the only study for which full data is pub­lic -pub­lished in The Lancet med­ical jour­nal -showed the op­po­site.

What thick­ens the plot is the fact that US pro­mo­tion of Remde­sivir co­in­cided with the an­nounce­ment on 28 April 2020 by Lin­ear Clin­i­cal Re­search, Perth of a launch of a hu­man trial of COVID-19 vac­cine de­vel­oped by China.

Of course, the race also in­cludes Eu­ro­pean coun­tries such as the UK and Switzer­land. In­dia and Cuba have a fairly de­vel­oped pro­gram too. How­ever, other than the US and China, none have the fi­nan­cial mus­cles to ex­er­cise mo­nop­oly con­trol over pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of the vac­cine.

The par­al­lels be­tween the ri­valry over 5G and VV (Virus Vac­cine) are too strik­ing to be ig­nored. Whether we ac­knowl­edge it or not; the com­bat­ants seem to be aware that the world will be pros­trate be­fore the vic­tor.

In­equitable ac­cess to the vac­cine be­ing the cor­ner­stone of the emerg­ing world or­der; the phrase, “How the other half dies!” will ac­quire a strange poignance.

Ti­tle Im­age cour­tesy: https://​cen.acs.org