Discomfort among European leaders early in May after Joe Biden’s surprise proposal of a temporary patents waiver to boost the supply of Covid vaccines for poorer countries.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission boss, said the EU was open to the idea, but at a summit in Porto, Germany and France gave it a cool reception. They may have a point about US and UK exports (or lack of them) being the real issue but with his move Biden appears to have put the US on the moral high ground about getting the world vaccinated, and Europe on the spot.  (Guardian 12 May 2021).

My comment:   We should of course be helping the smaller countries, both on moral grounds and political ones,  too.  There is no practical difference between roaring covid infection in Texas and covid infection in, say, India.  Covid will, and has, reached the US from developing countries.  The current strains were brought to the US mostly by people movement , which you cannot totally stop.   Aside from that there is the humane aspect, not to mention the soft power one. Epicurus would not have discriminated by race, politics or point of origin.  Covid is a threat to the world, and unfortunately will continue to be so unless everyone gets together to beat it.