Global reactivation by the end of 2022, a possible dream

G7 leaders will meet June 11-13. One of the initiatives is to achieve the commitment to vaccinate the entire world against Covid-19 by the end of next year.

The global tourism industry is going through different times depending on the region, there are two variables that radically change the situation: restrictions and vaccination levels against Covid-19. The next few days may be decisive because from June 11 to 13, the leaders of the G7 will meet at a summit where among many issues, vaccination will be discussed at a global level. 

This week's meeting is the first among G7 leaders since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. The Summit presents a crucial opportunity to combine the capabilities and experience of the world's most influential democracies to defeat the virus and lead a global recovery.

The UK has led efforts to ensure that the world's poorest and most vulnerable people have access to vaccines. At the beginning of the pandemic, the UK government funded the development and production of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and ensured that it would be available at cost worldwide. As a result, almost 1 in 3 vaccines administered worldwide has been the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine: 450 million out of 1.5 billion doses.

The UK also worked to establish the COVAX scheme to distribute the vaccine to developing countries, providing a significant financial contribution of £ 548 million up front and encouraging other countries to commit to the scheme.

COVAX would not have been able to deliver all 80 million doses without Oxford-AstraZeneca, which accounted for 96% of those doses.

According to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to end the pandemic for good, the world's largest economies must go further and commit to vaccinating the world by the end of next year. For this reason, it will ask the G7 leaders for their commitment to achieve it.

That includes increasing vaccine manufacturing, lowering barriers to international distribution of those vaccines, as the UK has done with Oxford-AstraZeneca, and finally sharing excess doses with developing countries bilaterally and through COVAX.

The UK has already committed to sharing a significant majority of its surplus doses with the plan and later this week the Prime Minister will announce more details of the UK's plans to support developing countries by sharing doses than the UK does not need.

The leaders will arrive in Carbis Bay, Cornwall on Friday for three days of meetings on a wide range of global issues, with a particular focus on how the group can lead the global recovery from the Coronavirus.

During those sessions they will be joined by virtually experts, including Sir Patrick Vallance, Melinda French Gates and David Attenborough. On Saturday, the G7 countries will join in person or virtually with the leaders of Australia, South Africa, the Republic of Korea and India to discuss health and climate change.

As well as calling on leaders to join the UK in efforts to vaccinate the world, the Prime Minister will ask them to support the Global Pandemic Radar, a new global surveillance system that will protect immunization programs against new resistant variants. to vaccines by detecting them before they do. have the opportunity to spread.

 

WTTC calls for urgent re-establishment of international travel

The World Travel and Tourism Council, which represents the global private sector, made the request in an open letter to Boris Johnson, Chairman of the G7 Group of Nations in 2021, just days before the leaders to get together.

The letter sets out the critical role the G7 must play in driving real change and saving the global travel and tourism industry by safely restoring international travel and mobility through three key actions.

The first is to put travel and tourism at the center of all government decisions globally, recognizing their economic and social importance and committing to a stronger global public-private partnership.

Second, commit to implementing a consistent framework to safely reopen international travel, using digital health tests, health and hygiene protocols, and travel passes to ensure a safe and seamless flow of people.

Finally, reopen international borders between countries with similar successful vaccination implementations and low levels of infection, such as the US and the UK. This move would unlock both inbound and outbound travel and provide a significant boost to both economies, based on clear and consistent metrics and following a data-driven approach.

Virginia Messina, Senior Vice President and Acting Executive Director of WTTC, said: “With the global travel and tourism sector hanging by a thread, Boris Johnson is uniquely positioned to lead the G7 response to restart international travel and save millions. of jobs and livelihoods that depend on a prosperous sector.

“The situation is critical, so we must put travel and tourism at the center of all government decisions globally and agree on a coherent framework to reopen international borders.

“The risks of not doing so are enormous. In the G7 countries alone, the sector represents 5.11% of the total economy and almost one in 10 of all jobs globally (9.07%). If we don't save on international travel, we simply won't achieve global socio-economic recovery.

“However, we can and must seize the opportunity provided by the enormous success of the implementation of vaccination to remove travel restrictions and build bridges, not walls, which will allow the safe and free movement of people who are fully vaccinated. or they may present evidence of a negative test.

"We urge the government of Boris Johnson, who led the world in administering the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and the other G7 leaders to take this courageous step and save a sector that will be crucial to saving their economies."

In the letter to Boris Johnson, WTTC said that the travel and tourism sector will play a key role in achieving the G7 political priorities set by his presidency.

The world tourism body said that we will not achieve global recovery unless international mobility resumes and helps to recover millions of jobs in the economy; Allow free and fair trade to flourish again. Travel and tourism will also play a key role in improving our preparedness and resilience against future pandemics, as well as fighting climate change.

According to the latest WTTC Economic Impact Report (EIR), in 2019, Travel and Tourism contributed to 10.4% of global GDP and created more than 330 million jobs, that is, one in ten jobs in all the world.

Yet after a year of global lockdowns and closed borders, some 62 million Travel & Tourism jobs have been lost worldwide, with many more at risk, and the sector's contribution to global GDP has plummeted by 4.5 trillion dollars (-49.1%).




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