Coronavirus: US missing in action on vaccine

Donald Trump is unlikely to find much support for the ho-hum view he expressed in the White House on Friday that we don’t even need a vaccine for COVID-19 to “go away”. “I feel about vaccines like I feel about tests,” he said in comparing COVID-19 with “other viruses and flus” that, he argued, had come and gone. “This is going to go away without a vaccine. It’s going to go away, and we’re not going to see it again,” he insisted. As the coronavirus mutates into even more contagious forms and with America hit harder than any other nation, it is difficult to understand Mr Trump’s insouciance. But it goes a long way towards explaining his ill-judged absence from last week’s important virtual summit of 40 world leaders, including Scott Morrison, at which a remarkable $12.4bn was pledged to speed up and expand global co-operation to find a vaccine.

The summit was intended to be a display of solidarity in fighting the pandemic. Its aim was to achieve the sort of unity that the group of 27 US Republican and Democratic senators and members of the House of Representatives doubtless had in mind when they wrote to our Washington ambassador, Arthur Sinodinos, to express solid support for the Prime Minister’s initiative in seeking an independent investigation into COVID-19. In Mr Trump’s absence from the vaccine summit the 40 leaders took their cue not from him but from Boris Johnson. In contrast to Mr Trump’s flakiness, the British leader described the race for a vaccine as “the most urgent shared endeavour of all our lifetimes”. Mr Morrison, in pledging $352m, was no less forceful, speaking of “a great shared project by the peoples of the world with a clear purpose: to find that vaccine”. French President Emmanuel Macron warned “a race against time is under way”. Japanese leader Shinzo Abe pledged $1.24bn, the single biggest contribution. Other countries backing what was a remarkable display of unity of purpose in the face of the pandemic included Italy, Spain, Canada, Turkey, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel.

Mr Trump was not the only major stay-away from the biggest virtual consultation among world leaders since the contagion began. Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang failed to appear, although Beijing did assign an ambassador. Vladimir Putin also kept away. US officials insisted Washington already was providing $3.7bn “in global health, humanitarian and economic assistance towards the COVID-19 response”. But it will be a pity if Mr Trump maintains his dismissive view of a vaccine and the need to demonstrably achieve the closest possible global co-operation to find one. Strong US leadership is imperative in fighting the pandemic. Mr Trump was unwise to stay away. With so many lives dependent on finding a vaccine, it was no occasion for misguided political one-upmanship or pointless scientific nationalism by any country.