The U.S. was concerned about vaccine tourists. Now he encourages them.

A few days after Tedros ’press conference, in response to increasing international pressure, the Biden administration ordered 20 million doses to COVAX of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. This meant a significant change in policy: for the first time, the US provided doses that could be used at home. (The administration has also promised to donate 60 million doses of COVAX to AstraZeneca, but has not yet done so).

Glenn Cohen, a law professor at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, says the $ 20 million commitment is a “good first step” for a country that can’t get enough on its own. people to use their vaccine supplies quickly enough.

But, he adds, it does not deny ethical obscurity Think of offering or offering vaccinations to visitors to American cities and states as an official policy. Cohen, who has written a book on medical tourism, says vaccines should go “to those who need it most” and not to “those who have visas, visas and a good body.”

In other words, it says, “Someone will lend you a car to take your mother to the hospital, and then you decide to take that car and return it to the person or take other people to the” hospital … You run as an Uber. “

Outsourcing ethical questions

Robert Amler, dean of the New York Medical College’s school of health science and practice, says encouraging travelers to fly to places in the United States with low vaccination rates and higher potential infection levels can be bad for their health.

“The risk of importing“ common infections ”will depend on the volume of incoming passengers and the percentage of passengers with an already infected infection,” says Amler, a former CDC chief medical officer. “Also, we can’t predict with certainty if the city’s ability to manage its number becomes excessive.”

To address this risk, some people who are going to be vaccinated are taking their own measures to become an unwanted vector of the virus or to cause other types of damage.

“Michael” (also nicknamed) and his wife flew from Quito (Ecuador) to New Orleans on a plane in mid-May for a five-day trip. J&J was shot and got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

Michael’s family in Canada has yet to meet the couple’s twins, who were born in January 2020. Going to shoot in Louisiana, he estimates that the state of the vaccine — and therefore the family reunion — has accelerated between six and nine. months.

However, they wanted to make sure the couple didn’t get vaccinated if they could go to someone else. “Our first thought was to go to the red state, because we knew that supply exceeded demand,” he explains.

They took more precautions before and during the trip. Both were infected earlier in the pandemic, so they underwent antibody tests before flying. They then held themselves to limit exposure.

Taking the initiative slowed down the potential negative impact of travel, but this highlights another issue of vaccine tourism as a policy, and in general a large part of the world’s 19 kobid response. Difficult ethical decisions that could be — or, some say, should be — political issues are being pushed toward individuals.

“It’s the city that puts the queue,” says Pamela Hieronymi, a philosopher at the University of California, Los Angeles. So if you have a problem with tourist vaccinations, say, in New York, “it seems like your complaint should be made in the city, and not to someone who uses the dedicated line.”

Nicole Hassoun, professor of philosophy at Binghamton University and also head of the Global Health Impact Project, argues that although vaccine tourists may be faced with their choice, the real ethical issue is not at the individual level. “I think the question is really what states do with their resources and which countries continue to use them [vaccines] for their benefit, “he says.” Globally, that’s very wrong. “

There may also be side effects such as increasing local inequality, says Yadurshini Raveendran, a graduate of the Duke Global Health Institute, who noted that people in low-income countries are richer people who travel internationally and therefore have more opportunities to take advantage. Vaccine tourism – already have better access to health care than poor people in these countries. Israel has the highest vaccination rates in the world, it is noted, but Palestine has given a dose to only 5% of the population.