What Happens If China Gets the Covid-19 Vaccine First?

David Fidler has a nightmare scenario: In three months, China announces one of its Covid-19 vaccines has successfully completed Phase III trials. The World Health Organization is enthusiastic. Beijing doles out doses to countries in Latin America and Africa and those with claims to the South China Sea.To get more China news, you can visit shine news official website.

“If China wins the race, exploits that advantage and we don’t have anything equivalent yet, what do we do?” he asks. “That to me is what concerns me the most.” Fidler, an expert on global health and national security who has consulted for the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, isn’t the only one pondering what could go wrong in the next few months, as great powers race to be first to get their hands on the Covid-19 vaccine.

After half a year of social distancing, soaring unemployment and unrelenting death, it’s easy to cling to rhetoric about America’s “historic” efforts to find a vaccine to stem the pandemic, to drink in news about “promising” results from early stage clinical trials or predictions of the “high likelihood” a vaccine will be ready for Americans by the end of the year. But health and vaccine experts caution that it is too early to know whether any of the eight vaccines currently in Phase III trials will prove safe and effective at fighting the coronavirus. Of those eight candidates, four are Chinese, three are funded by the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed and one comes from Australia. Some experts already worry some of the most publicized candidates are overhyped. Which means Fidler’s fear isn’t so far-fetched. It’s very possible a Chinese vaccine could be the first to succeed in Phase III trials. If Warp Speed contenders fail, the U.S. could be perhaps six to eight months behind in developing one.

What happens then? Health and national security experts envision, in that case, the future unfolding like a kind of “choose your own nightmare” narrative, each potential pathway leading to geopolitical quagmires and thorny scientific traps. What if China refuses to give a safe vaccine to the United States, instead using it as a bargaining chip to combat U.S. power? What if the Trump administration, or a Biden administration, refuses to accept it? What if a Chinese “victory” pressures the U.S. or Europe to cut corners in their vaccine development or approval process—a worry only increased by President Donald Trump’s recent comments drawing the Food and Drug Administration into his political fights? A vaccine that works will be “the most important human resource in modern history,” says Larry Gostin, professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University. Countries are going to use it strategically. After inoculating its own population, “it’s very possible that China’s not going to sell [a vaccine] to the highest bidder,” he says.

“They’ll use it for political influence or political payback or part of the trade negotiations with the United States. … It’s very possible the United States could be at the end of the line.” Even if a Chinese vaccine were to come with no strings attached, Fidler doesn’t see it ending up in the U.S. “If you have a situation where the FDA says, ‘Yeah, looks good,’ then you have to buy it,” he explains. “Congress has to appropriate money to buy the vaccine from China when we won’t let people in the United States use TikTok? I say that kind of tongue in cheek, but this is how bad this is.”