No country can beat coronavirus alone – it’s internationalism or bust

Editorial: The actions of certain world leaders suggest that they are viewing the pandemic solely through a national lens. Yet a global pandemic can only be defeated collectively

Donald Trump has tried to secure a vaccine exclusively for US use (Reuters)

It should not really need saying that coronavirus is a global crisis that requires global solutions. Yet worryingly, the actions of some world leaders suggest that they are viewing the pandemic solely through a national lens.

Donald Trump has tried to secure a coronavirus vaccine for exclusive use in America. The EU has been painfully slow to ensure the mutual health and economic aid that is the bloc’s supposed raison d’etre. When the government in Rome asked the EU for urgent medical supplies, the silence was deafening, playing straight into the hands of Italy’s narrow-minded nationalist politicians.

On Sunday, a group of politicians and academics from across Europe urged the German chancellor Angela Merkel to lead a stronger EU response, including the issuing of European bonds, saying the 27 must be “ready to do whatever it takes to preserve our union and in fact strengthen it in the face of hardship”.

While panic buying by consumers was perhaps inevitable, there are now signs of the same kind of behaviour by national governments. The US was accused of “modern piracy” after reportedly diverting a German order of American-made face masks to its own shores. Turkey, meanwhile, stands accused of seizing hundreds of ventilators and sanitary equipment due to be exported to Spain (an accusation it denies).

This disastrous dog-eat-dog approach is not confined to medical supplies: Russia and Vietnam have introduced restrictions on the export of wheat and rice respectively; several other countries are topping up their grain reserves.

Coronavirus already poses a real threat to a developing world without strong enough health or economic systems to tackle it. According to the World Health Organisation, at least half of the world’s people lack access to essential medical care, and that was before the pandemic broke out. Then there is the chilling prospect of the disease spreading in refugee camps with minimal medical facilities.

This could be compounded by a food crisis as exporting countries turn inwards, creating a humanitarian disaster of barely imaginable proportions in places such as sub-Saharan Africa, where there were already fears of food shortages and drought this summer. The world’s richest countries have a moral duty to prevent such a catastrophe.

In the UK, the unexpected sense of community coronavirus has created was epitomised by the 750,000 people who offered to become NHS volunteer responders – so many that applications have now been paused – and initiatives such as The Independent’s Help The Hungry campaign.

But we are part of a global, as well as national, community. National leaders would do well to remember this – not least because it is in their own interest to do so. Unless the virus is eliminated in the world’s poorest countries, it will risk a second or third wave of the disease in the richest ones. When a vaccine is found, it must be made available to all nations, not the subject of a bidding war.

Borders will not stop coronavirus, any more than they will climate change. This pandemic will not end until countries reject nationalism for internationalism; trade barriers for mutual aid.