UN General Assembly
2021

Dear Mr. President of the General Assembly, Dear Mr. Secretary-General, Dear colleagues, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, That at least, some of you can meet in person after two complicated pandemic years fills me with some optimism. Optimism that science can and does offer solutions — and that if we respect scientific recommendations, we will overcome the challenges ahead. Indeed, we are in a much better place than a year ago. Vaccines offer a clear path out of the pandemic — but where the scientists have succeeded — in sequencing the virus or producing safe vaccines — the politics are still failing. A year ago, we made promises and pooled resources. More than 5 billion vaccine doses have been administered across the world — but nearly 75 per cent of them are in just ten countries. Fifty countries have less than a 5 per cent vaccination rate, with half of them just a 1 per cent rate. This is a failure of politics projected onto the world stage in real-time.