Thank you so much, Ambassador.
As you rightly said, when I spoke at the Munich Security Conference a year ago, I said that COVID-19 is very dangerous and “public enemy number one”.
And I remember at the time, people were a bit concerned. People followed me and said, “Tedros, are you not exaggerating?”
Unfortunately, in the past year we have all learned some painful lessons, and we have seen how very dangerous this virus is.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis, it is an uneven pandemic – not all countries have responded in the same way, and not all countries have been affected in the same way.
Many countries have succeeded in preventing or controlling widespread transmission with proven public health measures – testing, contact tracing, quarantine, physical distancing, hand hygiene, masks and so on.
In combination with those proven public health measures, vaccines are now giving us real hope of controlling the pandemic.
But to realize the full power of vaccines, we need three things.
First, we need governments to fully fund COVAX, and to donate doses now.
We’re grateful for the announcements made today by several G7 countries.
Second, because COVAX buys vaccines that have WHO emergency use listing, we need manufacturers to share their full dossiers with WHO at the same time as they submit them to other regulators.
And third, we need individuals to use their voices to advocate for vaccine equity. When people speak with one voice, governments listen.
Vaccine equity is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do.
The longer it takes to suppress the virus everywhere, the more opportunity it has to change in ways that could make vaccines less effective – an opportunity to mutate.
We could end up back at square one.
More vaccines are being developed, approved and produced. There will be enough for everyone.
But for now, vaccines are a limited resource. We must use them as effectively as we can.
So to come back to your question, are we succeeding? Yes, cases and deaths are declining, we have a toolbox of proven public health measures, and we now have powerful new tools that we could only dream about a year ago.
But we must make sure we use those tools effectively, which means using them in all countries to protect the most at-risk groups.
That’s the best way to save lives, end the pandemic, restore confidence and reboot the global economy. But we’re making progress.