Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. May 8, 2021 Fareed: Have Optimism for the Post-Pandemic World The pandemic has been terrible, but Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column that it has also ushered in innovations that should leave us optimistic about the future.
Vaccines based on RNA arrived to address Covid-19 with "breathtaking" speed, Fareed points out. "A decade ago, the scientific consensus was that it took 10 to 15 years—and a lot of luck—to produce a vaccine for a new disease." With the virus fading in the US, an economic boom appears to be in store, thanks in part to swiftly enacted relief funding. "In the United States, the ability of large parts of the economy to function and excel in the digital realm … has surprised even techno-optimists. These gains could endure," Fareed writes.
"I'm trying to look at the bright side of a terrible situation," Fareed concludes. "There are real grounds to be optimistic that, grim as the pandemic has been, it could open up progress across the world." On the topic of those mRNA vaccines that seemed to emerge miraculously, a Foreign Affairs essay by Nicole Lurie, Jakob P. Cramer, and Richard J. Hatchett (all disease-preparedness experts with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) notes the newfangled inoculations were "more than a decade in the making" and arrived just in time. Scientists had long hoped to be able to inject RNA into humans, but it took the right delivery system—housing the mRNA in lipid nanoparticles—to make the technology work.
As for post-Covid-19 applications, they write, "[m]essenger RNA technology could also give researchers ways to fight off future COVID-19-like outbreaks and prepare for a hypothetical 'Disease X'" pathogen both more transmissible and more deadly than SARS-CoV-2, about which infectious-disease experts have speculated and warned.
"What is more, mRNA could help create better routine vaccines, such as more efficacious flu shots," the authors suggest. (It currently takes about six months to develop flu vaccines, so scientists must make an early guess at which strain will become dominant in a given season, the authors write; mRNA vaccines "could, at least in theory, be produced in large quantities in weeks," yielding more time to figure that out.) "Scientists are only just beginning to unlock the full potential of mRNA vaccines," Lurie, Cramer, and Hatchett advise, concluding that "[a] new era in vaccinology has arrived." India's Avoidable Tragedy "Prime Minister Modi and his party were re-elected in May 2019 because people still believed he was a man of action and would deliver good governance as he had repeatedly promised," India Today Editor in Chief Aroon Purie writes in a damning editorial, as international attention gravitates toward Modi's lax response to India's horrific Covid-19 wave and as accusations of government failure accumulate. "It is cruelly ironic that today we have to witness our citizens gasping for breath and dying like flies because of an acute shortage: of hospital beds, drugs, oxygen cylinders, ambulances, hearses, even a place to cremate the dead. In the eyes of many, the state has collapsed and failed its citizens, denying them their most fundamental right—the right to life. The tragedy is that it didn't have to be this way."
Purie points to Modi's January declaration at the World Economic Forum that India had "effectively controlled corona" as misguided, as the virus's well-known dynamics should have made the current crisis predictable. "We threw caution to the winds," Purie writes. "The political class, including the prime minister and the home minister, went into full campaign mode in the five states going to polls ... Massive election rallies and religious gatherings were held without a care for Covid protocol." Ultimately, Purie argues for accountability, listing former Indian high officials who resigned amid seemingly lesser scandals. Modi, Purie writes, "is known for his technocratic governance, attention to detail and getting things done. This is the time for him to stand up and be the leader he is meant to be. Otherwise, the prospects are terrifying." Scottish Independence: 'If Not Now … Never?' Votes continue to be counted in Scotland's parliamentary elections, held Thursday, with the result "on a knife edge," as Scottish National Party leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon put it. As The New York Times noted in a preview of the vote, dissatisfaction with Brexit and growing talk of Scottish independence mean that if a majority vote for pro-independence parties, momentum could build for a second referendum on breaking away from the UK, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opposed holding. (In 2014, the first independence referendum was defeated by a 55% majority.)
At the New Statesman, Scotland editor Chris Deerin writes, of a recent interview with the independence-backing Sturgeon, that she "denies believing the polls need to show 60 per cent support for independence before a second referendum can confidently be held … although that figure was being briefed by aides for a while. While she would prefer a big win, the reality is that a simple majority is all that is needed." That would prompt Sturgeon to "declare war on" Johnson, pressuring him to accept a referendum redux. With Surgeon's SNP enjoying strong support and with Brexit appearing to have swayed some of 2014's "No" voters into the pro-independence camp, Deerin writes, "The question for the Yes movement is this: If not now… never?" Another Reason to Covet the South China Sea China has infamously built islands and laid controversial maritime claims to the South China Sea, but at The Diplomat, Mark Crescenzi and Stephen Gent write that Beijing may have another reason to seek possession of those waters, beyond any sheer penchant for territorial expansion.
"The seabed of the South China Sea contains an abundant supply of small lumps of minerals known as polymetallic nodules," Crescenzi and Gent write, noting the importance of rare-earth minerals in producing advanced electronics and batteries. "China has developed the most advanced deep-sea extraction technology in the world, and its ability to harvest polymetallic nodules and the rare earths within them is unparalleled. With the emerging mining code coming out of the International Seabed Authority, the best way for China to ensure continued access to these seabed minerals and an offshore supply of rare earths would be to treat these waters as sovereign territory."
China sought to leverage its existing advantage in rare-earths supply in the early 2010s, cutting its export limits, only to see other countries boost their own rare-earth mining. Crescenzi and Gent speculate that China now likely wants to head off international competition from other rare-earth producers, meet "an expanding domestic need while continuing to dominate the global market," and find an alternative to digging more mines on the mainland. |
