Surviving pandemic in deeply polarised world

The news of successful late-stage trial of Covid-19 vaccine by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has raised hope in Western markets as investors see light at the end of the tunnel.

Many offbeat cyclical, oil and gas, tourism and travel sectors outperformed last week in the hope that usually springs eternal in human breast.

However, sceptical investors took the jubilation in European and US stock markets with a pinch of salt as there were in fact many successful late-stage trials such as by Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm and Russian Sputnik V vaccine already advancing quietly without much fanfare in the East.

As suspected, the rally in stock markets was quite short-lived and even the CEO of Pfizer dumped 61% of his stockholding in his company ($5.6 million) at the peak of euphoria when the stock surged 14% in a single trading day. Since then, Pfizer’s stock has gone down significantly and so did the rest of the developed market as reality struck hard that we are still not out of the woods yet.

While the markets are waiting anxiously for a smooth transition in the White House, the pandemic remains the elephant in the room. However, instead of a unified strategy to fight the global menace, the deep division appears on the already fractured global geopolitical landscape between the East and the West, already at loggerheads on issues such as trade imbalance.

Back in Pakistan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and media have finally started taking the rising Covid-19 cases seriously and are constantly reminding the general public that the virus is not gone.

Despite stern warnings and fines, the general public seems indifferent and oblivious to the fact that the prospect of reimposition of a full lockdown is looming. It is a general consensus that with the kind of financial and medical resources that the developed world has, the quick availability of the vaccine is right at the corner in the West.

If anything that is crystal clear in the otherwise convoluted chain of events during this pandemic is the deepening global polarisation between the “haves and have-nots”.

With the developed countries in the West showering trillions of dollars to stimulate their economies, the debt-ridden economies in the developing world are struggling just to make both ends meet in order to survive another day.

On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that Western countries have already placed advanced orders for millions of doses to the front runners among vaccine developers in Europe and the US such as AstraZeneca, Moderna, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.

The scenario which is emerging now is that the West is desperate to immunise itself fast in order to open up its economies as quickly as it can, at least across the Atlantic, to get out of the pit and join the race where it is badly trailing behind China, which is well on her way to become the biggest economy of the world by 2030.

This polarisation in the world poses a serious challenge to the developing countries like Pakistan where early availability of a reliable vaccine seems a distant dream, making it more critical to learn how to survive longer without a shot in the arm.

So far, various factors have worked in our favour as our relatively younger population is immunised in some form or shape. We are constantly fighting many health crises and viruses while surviving in substandard and unhygienic living conditions. However, we cannot stay complacent because of the impending health crisis which is rearing its head more vigorously than before and until the vaccine is made available, social distancing, wearing masks and maintaining hygiene is the only way forward.

The writer is a financial market enthusiast and attached to Pakistan’s stocks, commodities and emerging technology

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2020.

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