Emma Ross
Good morning and thank you for joining us today on the Living With COVID-19 webinar series with Chatham House Distinguished Fellow, Professor David Heymann. We have with us today two guests, who are experts in international security. Dr Patricia Lewis is the Research Director at Chatham House for Conflict, Science and Transformation, and leads our International Security Programme. She previously served as Deputy Director and Scientist in Residence at the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the former Monterey Institute for International Studies, also a Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and Director of the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre in London. Joyce Hakmeh is a Senior Research Fellow in the International Security Programme and Co-Editor of the Journal of Cyber Policy. She’s a Board Member of the Global Former – Forum on Cyber Expertise, she’s worked for the United Nations and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. So, welcome to both of you and thank you for joining us today.
Before we launch in, I just want to cover the housekeeping stuff. As usual, this briefing is on the record and questions can be submitted using the ‘Q&A’ function on Zoom. Upvoted questions are more likely to be selected, so if you have a question that’s similar to one that’s already in the Q&A, please just upvote it. Okay, so we’ll get started.
I wanted to start with a bit of a scene setter for this conversation by quoting some remarks that UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, made at a virtual COVID-19 response meeting in New York about a month ago. And what he said was, “The pandemic is more than a global health crisis. It is a gamechanger for international peace and security. It has exposed the fragility of humankind and laid bare systemic and entrenched inequalities that are testing the resilience of societies. It has thrust geopolitical challenges and hard security threats back into the spotlight. It is exacerbating grievances, undermining social cohesion and fuelling conflicts, and therefore, also likely to act as a catalyst in the spread of terrorism and violent extremism. Supply chain disruptions, protectionism and growing nationalism are causing significant tensions in international relations.” So, there’s a lot to talk about here.
Patricia, I was hoping you could start by orienting us a bit more, with regard to the international security implications of the pandemic, and to what extent responses have been securitised. I mean, is it creating a distraction from threats to international security, and has there been any opportunism in this area, while we are all busy responding to the pandemic?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thanks, Emma, and I’m really pleased to be able to participate in today’s session. I think that there are both positives and negatives for international security in this situation. I’m going to deal mostly with the negatives, because that’s what international security people tend to do. But I think that we have also to think about that for each of these negatives, there’s a major learning experience that may help us in all sorts of ways going forward, and then I think there are some specific positives as well. But let me start with the negatives.
First of all, there is some immediate opportunism. I think we’re going to speak of that a bit later, but for each of these situations that’s going on at the moment, which is sort of off the boil, as it were, or out of the public eye, or because of the way in which diplomacy is being so severely curtailed by this virus and its implications, there’s all sorts of things that could go horribly wrong in these situations. There is also, I think, in the longer-term, an observation by adversaries, by enemies, of weaknesses in our societies that have been poorly understood by those who possess those weaknesses, and we all do. So, there’s acute observation going on and there’s also what I would call stress testing by the opposition, if you like, forays into the weaknesses, and I think Joyce will talk about some of those particularly in the cyber domain later.
There’s been this lack of attention to longstanding conflicts, of course, which is an ongoing problem, but now, there’s an increase in problems that have been left unattended and a resurgence of some of those conflicts and we may see more rise up, as we go along. There’s also a lack of attention to some underlying long-term issues, which are going to be a big problem going forward. One of those is the nuclear non-proliferation issue. The review conference that was supposed to take place this year has had to be postponed, the same for the issue of climate change, also, for internet standards, which I think Joyce will also mention, and the ongoing long-term problems that are not being solved, as a result of this.
There’s long-term impact of inequalities that Secretary-General Guterres mentioned, that are being created or deepened by COVID-19. We’re seeing increased racism, we’re seeing increased divisions in society to do with, you know, the haves and the have-nots. We’re seeing the long-term impact of disinformation and misinformation spread, which was going on before, but I think that we’ve really seen an acceleration of this, and this has been an undermining of scientific expertise, and increasing poor basis for public policies. And then, I think that there is this possible weaponization of treatments and vaccines, in terms of withholding or using the availability to compel countries to do certain things, and that puts all sorts of international tensions at play.
And then, on the positive side, just to end, I think we’re learning hugely, and so a lot of what will happen at the – as a result of all of this is what we will learn in terms of our humanity, what we will learn in terms of our resilience, what we will learn in terms of future stresses, future crises that are coming our way, for example, to do with climate change. I’ll leave it at that for now.
Emma Ross
Okay, thank you, Patricia, that’s a great introduction. I wanted to ask specifically, as far as international security, are there any examples of opportunism, in terms of us being distracted by having to deal with the pandemic, where states have made moves that affect international security, to kind of flex their muscle or test the waters? Can you give us some specific examples? I mean, I’m thinking about crackdowns in Hong Kong, but if you could link those to international security, what are we seeing going on in that area?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yes, I mean, it’s very difficult to say that this – these would not have occurred, or they would have occurred in a different way, had it not been for COVID-19. But it is true that during this pandemic crisis international tension has been distracted, in the sense – distracted is the wrong word, but has been fully occupied elsewhere. There are also real problems, in terms of the ways in which we normally deal with these things, such as in multilateral forums where, you know, we’re able to discuss, often in a low key way, what’s going on, alerts can be issued, things can be taken to step in, and many of those mechanisms have been muted or even halted completely. So, I would say that, you know, we’re having – if we look at – you mentioned Hong Kong, I would say there’s been all sorts of stuff going on in the South China Seas with the large geopolitics that’s going on there and that we’re not paying enough attention to.
I would also say that the China’s incursions into India that have been going on since the spring, early summer, which is – you know, there is always a seasonal issue to some of these things, but this is a real major step up, and there are current negotiations going on at the border – at the, sorry, at the line of actual control in Eastern Ladakh, and I think that, you know, this has been a big shock in India. There’s also that China has come down in Hong Kong, you mentioned also in the weaker regions. We’ve got all sorts of activities going on, particularly in the cyber domain in Ukraine and what’s coming forward into winter in the elections. Nagorno-Karabakh, of course, everyone’s now more aware of what’s going on there, it’s a longstanding conflict and, this is what I mean, we have these longstanding conflicts, which require continual attention and they’re not getting it. And I think that what we’re seeing here is an old war with all sorts of new tech, drones and social media fake news, etc., that’s all playing into that. And then, of course, we’re seeing enormous amounts of opportunism in the cyber domain, which Joyce will address very shortly, particularly and rather unpleasantly, I would say, in terms of how you might think about our species, in the health and medical sectors.
Emma Ross
Okay, great. David, I wanted to ask you about – I wanted to go back to something Guterres said about how supply chain disruptions, protectionism and growing nationalism are causing significant tensions in international relations, and my question is, is this something that pandemics, or other global health emergencies that may be short of a pandemic, have a history of doing, or is what’s going on here somewhat unprecedented? Mute, you need to unmute.
Professor David Heymann CBE
Okay, thanks, Emma, and thanks, Patricia, and Joyce, for joining us today. Talking about the past and tensions globally in supply chain, I think there’s a very good example that came out of Indonesia back in 2007. If you remember back then, there was a new influenza virus, the avian influenza virus, which was circulating in Asia, and in order to develop vaccines for this virus, the viruses were – needed to be sent to WHO. WHO provided them to laboratories that prepared them for vaccine production, and they were then sent to vaccine manufacturers at no cost, to develop a pandemic vaccine in this case, to be sure that there was a vaccine, should it be needed.
There was only a production capacity for vaccine of about three billion doses at that time and what happened was that industrialised countries bought this vaccine and bought it in advance, even though it wasn’t yet prepared, as is going on today with COVID, and this vaccine was then stored by these manufacturers for countries, should they need it.
Indonesia was one of the major partners providing virus to WHO, during this period of time for vaccines, and the Minster of Health of Indonesia was asked by her President to go to the company that had taken the virus from Indonesia and obtain vaccine for the country, so that they could vaccinate their primary health workers, in case they needed to, in case there was a pandemic. She went to the company that had taken the virus. She couldn’t get vaccine because it had all been sold. So, this caused quite a concern in the Minister and she began to talk about sharing of benefits, if you were sharing of goods such as a virus. And so, this went into discussions at the World Health Organization, and within a period of about three years after discussions in intergovernmental groups, there was a framework, which was developed, which solved part of the problem. Because industry agreed that they would provide vaccine to WHO for developing country use, in quantities sufficient to vaccinate their primary workers, their primary responders.
So, the tensions that occurred were actually decreased by intergovernmental action within the World Health Organization, and this continues to occur today, as we know, with COVID, and, fortunately, today, there’s a step further, there’s the COVAX initiative, which hopefully, if there is a successful vaccine, will be able to make this available to countries. But we see, again, that industrialised countries are purchasing in advance the vaccine.
Emma Ross
So, would it seem that the COVAX facility is an example of how we learned from last time that what we did last time just wasn’t enough and we’ve improved the situation this time round? Or is that yet to be judged?
Professor David Heymann CBE
Well, Emma, it’s just good public health to address the inequalities and distribution of any goods, such as a vaccine or a therapeutic or a diagnostic test, which is what’s happening now. Good practice, because countries realise that in order for everyone to be secure, everyone must have access to the goods that are available. So, hopefully, if there is a vaccine, this COVAX initiative will make it available, just as the Accelerator for access to therapeutics will make it acceptable – susceptible – available to all countries.
Emma Ross
Okay, thanks. Patricia, I wanted to go to you on this protectionism and nationalism thing and what it’s doing to international relations and peace and security. Guterres, in that same speech, said that “The lack of international co-operation to tackle the wide-ranging impacts of the pandemic has been startling and that many governments have retreated into a narrow understanding of national self-interest and a transactional approach to sharing information and resources.” Is this having an impact on international security? Is it an international security issue, potentially, in reality? Do you agree that there seems to be a retreat to a narrower understanding of national self-interest?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yes, I think this is a trend that had begun prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, it came at a particularly difficult time, in international relations, where there was already an increasing nationalism, and increasing transactional approach to international relations, which is always there, to be honest. But it’s – we’ve seen a real moving away from the multilateral co-operation, the sense of us as one humanity, and moving into much more nationalistic, xenophobic, in some cases, and racist, in some cases, approach to our national politics as well as our international politics. And this, of course, is a very difficult backdrop for international security, which relies very much on collective security, the idea of a common security, a common security framework, be that in regions or be that globally, and there’s sort of mixes of all of that. So, I think when you start to put a stress like this on an already difficult situation, you will get those very nationalistic tendencies, which are there in every society, come up to the fore, because they were already doing that and they were able to use this pandemic to drive those visions more and more within their societies, and we’ve seen that happen in many countries and regions across the world.
So, yes, I think this is a big problem going forward, because there’s a real tendency as well, I think, in situations like this, of great stress where the public want the Politicians to do the best for them first, and I think, as David says, it’s about communicating that it’s no good just doing the best for a small group of people because what this shows us that the whole of our species is under threat. So – and some others as well, of course, we should add in, this virus isn’t only attacking our own species. So, we need to think about this much more widely, but it’s very difficult because of the trends that are already ongoing. I think if this had occurred, you know, back in the 90s, we would have had a very different collective response, for example, to this.
Emma Ross
That’s really interesting. Joyce, I wanted to move to you and apologies for continually quoting others, but this whole discussion is a little bit out of our norm, where we mostly focus on the epidemiology and more sciencey stuff, or non-political science. But I read, in an article on Defence IQ recently, that “Some states have made dramatic changes to their national security architectures, including political power grabs by Presidents to rule by decree,” and I guess you don’t need to read an article for that, that’s been pretty transparent. But also, that the opportunity of responding to the current crisis has ushered in a new political age, in which soft authoritarians have turned harder and the surveillance state has become a way of life, even in some democracies. And I first wanted to – was hoping you could zero in on the authoritarian question, what are the most remarkable examples of authoritarian leaders using the pandemic to strengthen their power and what kind of exploitation of the pandemic has been going on in this area?
Joyce Hakmeh
Thank you, Emma, and thank you, David, for inviting me, and thank you for putting together this great webinar on opportunism and international security in the context of COVID, although, as you said, it’s out of your norm. It’s extremely relevant and important, and to go back to the quote that you started with on what the Secretary-General of the UN said, it is a game – COVID has been a gamechanger for peace and security. It has really played a big role in fuelling the crisis for democracy and has had, and is still having, a massive security, you know, implication. So, it’s no longer just a health crisis, it is also a crisis of peace and security, it is a crisis also in the cyber security domain that I cover.
So, to go to your question, I’ll start with the question you asked about the authoritarian countries and how has COVID impacted their behaviour and their policies. Actually, a recent study that was launched last week, I think, by Freedom House, concluded that the condition of democracy and human rights in – has grown worse in 80 countries since COVID started. And this, of course, particularly is striking in struggling democracies and in highly repressive regime, but we also saw, in some developed democracies, some aspects that are worrying and that would raise some alarm.
But maybe we start with the kind of the main big trends that we thought – that we saw authoritarian regimes pursuing. So, first, you know, there were – like there is an increasing trend of new or increased restrictions on news media. So, a very confined environment for the news media to operate, which has a big implication on how they can bring governments into account and how they can play the sort of watchdog role and in their investigative journalism. There has been a moving of dates and changing in election rules in several countries. There has been abuse of powers by, for example, police violence and by some judicial bias. There has been increased restrictions on, as Patricia mentioned, on ethnic and religious minorities, and there has been a lack of transparency, not just in authoritarian countries, but also, in liberal democracies where there is a growing distrust in the COVID-related information that is being relayed by the government.
In addition to that, there have been – this COVID has created opportunities for these authoritarian regime to use these exceptional powers or emergency times and impose new laws and emergency laws, in particular laws to do with anti-disinformation, etc., which are in effect, used to clamp down on free speech, used to restrict freedoms, used to restrict or to kind of further the narrative that they’d like to propel. So, really, a lot of worrying trends that we have seen, and we should be very concerned about what that means for our future, once this crisis is finished. So, that’s on the authoritarian aspect. I don’t know if you want me to talk – to go now to the surveillance aspect or…
Emma Ross
Yeah, yeah, on that, thank you for that, but, yes, so leaving the authoritarian regimes aside for a moment, yeah, I wanted to move into more liberal democracies, and it seems like the methods that some liberal democracies are currently using to effectively fight the virus are the same tactics that authoritarian leaders use to dominate their people in general. And it’s really amazing to me to see what we have been willing to co-operate with and you have to wonder whether, if there wasn’t a dire life-threatening emergency going on, whether it would be so easy for these things to gain a foothold. And I wanted to ask you whether, in liberal democracies, are these things a danger to freedom after the crisis? Is COVID accelerating us moving towards loss of freedom, privacy, increased surveillance, in even liberal democracies, or is this really – are you not worried, and this seems like a temporary thing and everything will, you know, be undone, when it’s no longer necessary in these emergencies?
Joyce Hakmeh
Yes, that’s a great question, Emma, and something that human rights organisations have been extremely worried about, and you’re right to say that, in emergency situations, three are emergency measures that are always introduced. The problem is whether these emergency measures will stop to exist once the crisis subsides, and, you know, in several, you know, in several experiences, we’ve seen that actually emergency measures have a tendency to stay, right, under different pretexts.
Now, looking at what is it that actually we should be worried about and what are the implications or the long-term risks that we need to be thinking about, and, of course, you know, when governments are trying to come up with the, sort of, like, technological responses, or responses more generally, they are kind of, you know – the thinking should be how can we act quickly and decisively, while at the same time, take account of the long-term consequences of those actions? So, that’s not something that I am very positive that governments are doing, but this is something that we need to be – we need to keep pushing for, are you thinking about the long-term consequences? What sort of world will we be left with when this crisis is finished? And when it comes to technological developments, they have been used largely by so many governments, including liberal democracies, trying to contain the virus, from using tech for quarantine enforcement, to using, you know, test and trace apps, which, you know, their efficiency is under question, to using telecommunications’ data, who you call and when you call, etc., to monitoring of, like, social distancing.
Now, these measures have severe restrictions on people’s freedoms and people’s human rights, right, whether your right to privacy, your right to free movement, or, like, a bunch of other human rights. So, there are severe restrictions and, as you said, they are being based on emergency measures and extraordinary powers and people are sometimes presented with this false dichotomy, it’s either your health or your privacy or human rights, which is not actually true. So, these measures are being introduced. Now they are severe. in terms of how much they limit what we can do, which has been justified because of COVID. But what is really important for us to keep flagging is that these measures have to be temporary, they have to be a necessity, and they have to be proportionate. And once the pandemic is over, hopefully it will be, then these measures, which should be overdue, and they should be also held into account. So, yes, a lot of measures that are very much restricting on our freedoms and liberties are being introduced everywhere, including in liberal democracies, the big question is, what do we do with them, once it’s over, and can we just bring them into account, once this pandemic subsides?
Emma Ross
Thank you for that. David, I wanted to bring you on, first of all, on the health versus privacy. Joyce says it’s a false dichotomy. Is it possible to beat the virus, without infringing on privacy and rights, and can you give us a wider perspective on this whole application of information technology to combat the virus, and what that does, what impact that has on community, trust and co-operation with the response?
Professor David Heymann CBE
Thanks, Emma. Yeah, communication technologies today are very important and they’re very important, if used properly in outbreak activities. But communication and tech – communication technologies can’t be used from a central point to control what’s going on in the outbreak. They have to be used at a local area where people have trust in each other. For example, if you want to do contact tracing, I think countries in Asia have shown very clearly that you can’t replace contact tracing, or track and trace, with anything but good, close work within a community, using technologies, but at the same time, creating trust in the people you’re working with. So, in Asia, they use the applications that they’ve developed at the community level to facilitate the work that they’re doing face-to-face. Face-to-face is the way that you get trust of people.
They also use these in a more global way within the countries, to permit people to report when they’re sick or when they have signs and symptoms that might be infection, if they wish to do that, and at the same time, they then go back to them with further information. In some countries, they also use these to track people. They track people where they go during a time when they have to be confined, and these are issues, which are very difficult to deal with today, because we just don’t have ethical frameworks around all of these. But if someone voluntarily downloads an app, then they must also take responsibility for knowing what’s going on with that app and whether or not they can accept what’s going on, and at the same time that this is done, countries need to develop frameworks in which they can guarantee people that the app – that the data that’s being downloaded or being used is kept in a confidential manner.
But we’re just learning how to use these technologies, Emma, as we fight outbreaks. But for the moment the most important is that trust and face-to-face contact between people, in order to really do a good job of containing outbreaks. These other activities will be assessed over time. It will be seen whether they’re useful or not. At present it’s just too early to say, but they do have an application, which could be very important in the future, if we can get the ethical framework right and if people understand and trust what’s being done by them.
Emma Ross
Okay. I’m not sure if you answered fully on the health versus privacy, is it possible to beat this virus, or – okay, not beat the virus, but control the pandemic, or do what we need to do, without infringing on privacy and rights? Is it possible to do it, or, in this day and age and given this virus, we have to infringe on those, in order to control the virus? Is it necessary?
Professor David Heymann CBE
Emma, in the current situation, it’s necessary to mitigate when possible, and that includes shutting down mass events, great big events, such as rock concerts or different things where people gather. That’s an obligation of countries because that’s good practice, to mitigate against that type of activity. Also, it’s good practice to understand where the virus is transmitting and if you can find that area, then you shut that down and you help the area where the transmission is occurring become safe, so that it can open up again. But just bluntly shutting down, without understanding the dynamics of the epidemic, maybe isn’t the best way to go.
Asian countries have shown that you can trace back from patients to where outbreaks began and they’re finding that they often begin in nightclubs or in different places where people congregate. They then lock down those areas for a certain period of time, work with the owners or the groups to make sure that they can then be opened again safely, and then they’re open. So, yes, it is important that we – there is a necessity, in some instances, to shutdown events, which people might feel they have a right to attend, just because that’s good public health practice. In other instances, it’s looking to see where to shutdown that’s the most important.
Emma Ross
Okay. Just before we leave this question, really want to zero in on the privacy thing, is it necessary for the government to be able to track everywhere you go and know where you’ve been and for you to submit to that in order to control this pandemic? Is it necessary, helpful, or really of not much use, or remains to be seen? As far as willingness to do it, is it an absolute necessity that, you know, people are being irresponsible and selfish if they don’t submit?
Professor David Heymann CBE
You know, we’re building this ship of response as we go along, and I can’t really answer that question at present, Emma. What I can say is, we have to continue to work with these new technologies, to see how they can best be applied, and to give an answer at this point’s not possible. We know that some things have worked in Asian countries, for example. We know that they have been tracking people when they leave their self-isolation and they’ve brought them back. This has to be now examined to see whether or not this is suitable to be used in other countries or whether it was a unique experience in that country, because of their norms and the expectations of their populations. So, there’s no general answer to this, but it is good that people are working with these, to see if they are really effective.
Emma Ross
Okay. Okay, I’ll let you go on that one. Patricia, I wanted to come to you now in somehow, I feel there’s a link between preparing and responding to bioweapons and bioterror attacks, and for years we’ve been exercised about a bioweapons attack, and yet we’ve had a pandemic now. And I just wondered if you could talk about, have we been focusing on the wrong thing? Should pandemics be taken more seriously by the international security community, but also, on the flipside, has the pandemic shown us anything about our capability to deal with a bioweapons attack? Is there any link there, as far as should we be stress testing our biosecurity defences now? Is there a link and what are your thoughts on that whole tie-up there, if there is one?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thanks, Emma. I mean, this is a really important question. I think, yes, there is a link, and I think anyone who’s been working in biosecurity issues for a long time has always understood that the difference between a deliberate pandemic, if you like, and an accidental or inadvertent pandemic, or a naturally occurring pandemic, at the beginning, it’s the same, there’s no difference, it’s the same. And so, what really matters, more than anything, in all of our biosecurity, is good biosecurity practice, but also, a really good public healthcare system where we really understand what we do, in all of these cases, and, as you rightly say, stress test all the time, for all sorts of different possibilities.
One of the big problems I think that we’ve had is in the securitisation of the idea of bioweapons, as opposed to bio-events or biosecurity written much larger, is that we’ve had a mentality or a mindset, which probably hasn’t been conducive. For example, an awful lot of energy has gone into arguing about whether we can verify and what level we can verify bad behaviour, good behaviour in the bioweapons’ convention, for example, which doesn’t have a laid-out verification regime. So, we’ve been in a situation, I think, where we’ve been thinking about the wrong things, and probably investing in the wrong things. I don’t think the health community has, by the way, and I don’t think that the biosecurity that works with the health community has, I think they’ve understood this very well. But I think some of our decision-makers have focused a little bit too much on, you know, the intent part rather than the actual facts on the ground part.
I think that one of the things that we’ve learnt through all of this is that our – it shows how vulnerable our health services are to highly infectious fatal diseases, against which we don’t have any immunity, and we’ve understood that in the bioweapons side, but somehow that didn’t translate into the naturally occurring outbreaks in many countries, particularly in those where we – I think we’re rather complacent about our capability to respond and we actually imagined ourselves to be much more responsive and resilient than we’ve been shown to be. And one of the positives, ‘cause I always look for positives in all of these things, is that what this has shown us is, of course, how bioweapons are really not a good weapon in that, you know, that you can’t control a pandemic. And any highly infectious disease that might be used as a bioweapon would blow back at you and, in fact, that’s been one of the great inhibitors on the use and the development of bioweapons, over many decades. And I think the other thing is that it shows the way about how we need to invest in universal healthcare and prevention mechanisms and the cost effectiveness and the efficacy of doing that for all sorts of crises that might come our way, be they pandemics or other forms of health crises, or even just other forms of non-health, but other types of crises, is really there for us all to see now, and this is what we need to – that’s the opportunism we really need right now, is what I would say.
Emma Ross
Okay, thank you. Timing-wise, I’m going to move on to audience questions now, and the most upvoted question is from Charles Clift, “Is China using the virus to further its global geopolitical ambitions and, if so, how and what is the likely outcome in five to ten years’ time?” And also on China, I’m going to team that with another question from Domenic Carratu, “Patricia’s initial summary of current issues seemed to have PRC involvement, if not instigation, are they using the focus in the West on fighting the pandemic as a veil for their heightened activities?”
Dr Patricia Lewis
Are you asking me that question?
Emma Ross
Yes, I guess. Yes, why don’t you, since one is directed towards you, if you could handle both, I’m not sure I fully understand the second question.
Dr Patricia Lewis
I think the answer – the question is, you know, is China using this as an object? And I think the answer is many countries are doing this. So, I don’t know the inner workings of the Chinese Government. I don’t know that they wouldn’t be doing what they were doing anyway, but certainly, every government would use the opportunities that were presented to them. So, one of the questions we have is, is the activities of governments, such as China and such as Russia, such as the United States, etc., is it part of what they’re doing testing out the weak spots for the future? And they would be rather – they would be, in a sense, failing in their duties if they didn’t do so. But that can be also very helpful to those that are being tested, so long as they learn how to withstand those stresses, learn how to respond, they are actually, in a sense, inoculating themselves for the future as well. This sort of idea of sort of stress vaccination that we have in international security, where small shocks, small stresses can really help build increased resilience and increased responsivity later in a bigger crisis.
So, the other thing I think we have to be aware of is that each of these countries is grappling with a domestic crisis of their own, in terms of the virus, and China, of course, has suffered inordinately from this virus. But it is now coming out of it, because of the policies that it’s adopted, it’s coming out of it and it seems to be doing much well economically – much better economically than it was doing earlier this year. And, of course, that’s not true for many of the countries surrounding it or many of its larger geopolitical competitors. So, it would be unusual, I think, if China were not using this as an opportunity to be able to further its aims. So, it’s dependent on the rest of the world as to how it then engages with China, on all of these issues, and what – how we think about how best to engage with China, in terms of our own economies, but also, our own security, in terms of human rights, and then also, in terms of fighting the pandemic. And I think that we can too easily fall into the trap of just, you know, saying ‘bad China’ and there are many countries where we could say, you know, bad behaviour around the world, but we need to instead to look at our own responses and how we are dealing with China or dealing with those other countries that might be using the situation as an opportunity to be able to further its aims, but also test out for the future. And I’m sure that every country that has capability, military capability, diplomatic capability, intelligence gathering capability are using this as an opportunity to learn and that’s what human beings do.
Emma Ross
Okay, thank you. This is a question for you, again, Patricia, this is from Douglas Andrews, but, Joyce, if you want to answer this too, I think you probably could. Douglas Andrews has two questions that are linked, so I’ll read both of them. Douglas’ question is, “Although authoritarian leaders have indeed used the COVID-19 to increase their power, in many cases. they are faltering, e.g. Belarus, Russia, and in Western democracies, populist parties are losing some of their appeal, e.g. the Lega in Italy, Republicans in the US, please comment.” And the second question from Aaron Newble is, “Have authoritarian leaders done well from COVID? I sense that most of them have perhaps had a bad pandemic, despite conditions conducive to their authoritarian approaches.”
Dr Patricia Lewis
So, I’ll start with that and Joyce can add in, I think. I would say that it’s mixed, in terms of Aaron’s question, and I think it depends a lot on whether or not those authoritarian governments have been put in through a process of democracy and whether or not they can be voted out again, and I think we will start to see the impact of the ways in which each of our governments have responded, be they authoritarian or not, at the ballot box in democratic countries. So, those that have done well in the pandemic, and I think everyone can compare, you know, everybody compares themselves, for example, to the [inaudible – 42:57] such as, you know, South Korea, Vietnam, etc. And so, I think where their governments are found wanting, they will probably find it – they will probably struggle at the ballot box, but those countries where authoritarian leaders don’t have to go to the ballot box, I think it’s not – that’s not the metric by which they will judge – be judged. So then, you go into whether or not there will be more civil unrest and more undermining from within, perhaps from within their own parties, for example, more challenges within their parties, and I think that’s where we’ll start to see non-democratic countries and those governments start to suffer, if they’re judged to have been found wanting in this pandemic. So, yes, I think any country that hasn’t done as well as other countries will find that will be a major factor in the – in any forthcoming elections over the next few years. Memories tend to be quite short though, and so, you know, post-pandemic, I’m always an optimist, post-pandemic, then we will start to see a dampening down of that as a major issue going forward in international politics. There are people with long memories, but mostly people tend to sort of get on with what’s going on with the crisis of the day.
Joyce Hakmeh
Yeah, sorry, yeah, and maybe add a little bit about that, I think, I completely agree with what Patricia said, and also, you know, history will show us and will tell us, will inform us whether these approaches, and what sort of exact impact have these approaches had on populations and on the international peace and security and on our rights, etc. But I also think that countries who have done a good – the good thing will also be hailed in success and will also be a good success story to be followed, and to kind of like link this back to the conversation that we were having earlier around the dichotomy between health and privacy, I mean, the UK’s experience, or the UK has done actually something that has been hailed as positive, when it comes to this because, you know, your question is, can we do health without infringing on privacy?
I think the answer to that is that we have to keep talking to each other and we have to keep looking at the best approaches and testing and revising the approaches. I don’t think we should come up with something and decide on it whether it’s good or bad and just end it there. I think getting it right is a journey that, you know, that we have to keep doing, and, for example, when it came to the UK’s tracing app, one of the things that happened is that the UK initially had plans to go for a centralised model for data collection, and after the civil society had a massive outcry and pushed them to go – to leave that option, they went for a decentralised model. So, I would see that as actually something positive, that they were able to see the privacy implications from their approach and they changed it. Now, whether the app is efficient or not, that’s not for me to comment on, but I think that is a good practice in how we actually get the right balance between, you know, our health, our security, and so on.
Emma Ross
Okay, thank you. The most upvoted question at the moment, and I think David or Patricia, any of you can answer this one, it’s from Louise Vince and it says, “Disruptive events have always been used to rationalise political agendas. So far, we have seen a lot of individualism and nationalism, how can COVID-19 be harnessed to move towards transnational co-operation in the global public good?” David, do you want to start with that?
Professor David Heymann CBE
Yes, well, Emma, we talked about this a little bit earlier, the ACT-Accelerator is a new initiative, which is – had its birth here in London with the Wellcome Trust, and many countries now, including European countries and China, are providing funding to this ACT-Accelerator, which has as its objective to make sure that research on vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tests is accelerated, but also, that there is a way that these goods can then be provided more equally to people in need, and in this case, to countries throughout the world. This has already been tested now with diagnostic tests. Diagnostic tests were very difficult to obtain in many developing countries. Through the ACT-Accelerator, there now are tests, rapid diagnostic tests, that can determine whether or not a person is infected, which are distributed now to countries throughout the world at a preferential price. They then are expected to purchase them, and it’s always good practice to make sure that governments are engaged enough to use them, that they will purchase them first, and so these are available at a price that’s less than $5 per test in countries. There is the World Bank providing loans and others to purchase these, but countries must purchase these and then use them in their situations. So, already, we’re seeing that there is a more equal approach and equal playing field in the area of diagnostics, and when there are therapeutics and vaccines, if they do become available, hopefully, that same mechanism and that same way of approaching it will be used, so that there can be more equitable distribution of these very important public health goods.
Emma Ross
Do either – Patricia or Joyce, do you want to add anything?
Dr Patricia Lewis
If I may, Emma. I would say, I think I upvoted this question as well, by the way. I thought it was a really good question ‘cause it forces us to think about going forward, and that’s where we need – what we need to think about. The shock of this pandemic, the lack of preparedness, the lack of resilience in many places has, I think, stopped us from thinking about the future a bit. But we now are in a position where we really need to, and I think we need to use this situation to learn, particularly from the ways in which the divisions in our societies, and across our societies, have made the pandemic worse and how we can start to rectify those.
I think to learn as well from local resilience, the ways in which local communities know so much better about the ways in which their communities work and also, we’ve been looking at, in our research here at Chatham House, we’ve been looking at how actually, that local communities who don’t rely on government, can sometimes be more resilient because they’re less complacent and they’re less likely to wait for government action. And then, the other thing is about social cohesion. So, countries where Politicians and leaders have appealed to the best of us, the best in us, I should say, the support for the vulnerable, the support for each other, the protection of each other, those countries have done better than those who’ve sort of talked about, oh, you know, it’s people with co-morbidities, or it’s them over there, it’s people who are coming in that are causing problems, those sorts of blaming others have done – tend to have done worse than a society in which the leadership has looked for social cohesion and the bonds between all of us. So, if we could learn from that internationally, we need that kind of leadership to come again to the fore.
Professor David Heymann CBE
Emma, let me just come in after Patricia for just a minute because she’s talking about really the new elements that need to be considered in health security. It’s not just this old issue of protecting our borders or making sure that there are hospitals available for sick people, it goes much further than that. Health security really is secure populations and populations in this pandemic that are not secure are those who have co-morbidities, those who are obese, those who have not privilege, had the privilege to have the understanding of the health messages that are going out, as they should. Many times, this is linked to economic inequality, they just don’t get the messages to the people who need them. So, we’re broadening, all throughout this pandemic, our understanding not only of health security at the borders, but health security within and actually, health secure populations who are not developing the co-morbidities, which make them more susceptible to diseases, such as COVID-19.
Emma Ross
Okay, thanks. I’m going to move onto the next question and it’s from Brodie Owen at The National, and it’s for Patricia or Joyce, “Could you please expand on the possibility of countries using the availability of a future vaccine to compel countries to do things? Do you think that will happen? How can it be stopped?”
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yes, I do think it will happen. It happens in almost every situation like this. It happens even in situations such as making big decisions on the treaty negotiation or in terms of supporting powerful countries and the votes on the UN Security Council, so it would be really strange and unusual if it didn’t happen in this case. What can we do about it? I think the COVAX initiative is obviously critical in this regard. Having a group of countries that work together to provide vaccines for all those countries who would struggle to be able to purchase them, or have access to them through supply chains, etc., is perhaps the most important thing. I think countries, like the UK, which has, you know, dedicated a certain percentage of its finances into providing and committed to providing those vaccines to a group of countries, poorer countries, is really important.
We’re only as safe as each other. We all need to be in this together. So, that’s the kinds of leadership I think we really need to go. And if I could just mention one co-morbidity that we really need to focus on, and that’s the issue of age. So, that is not something perhaps that we’re focusing enough on, in terms of how to protect people against these types of infectious diseases, and I worry very much that we tend to think, oh, the elderly, they’re going to die anyway, and this is a terrible thing to happen in society, and so we need to think, in the sense of protection, we’re all in it together, to think about how we protect everybody in our society and not see age as a co-morbidity that could have been prevented, because it – we’re all going to get there, if we’re lucky, right?
Emma Ross
Yes, thank you. The next most upvoted question is from Mary Dejevsky and that is that “Russia has repeatedly offered to share its vaccine research, but the response of most Western countries has been at best dismissive, why is that?” Who feels ready to answer that one?
Joyce Hakmeh
Maybe can I – do you want me to start, Patricia, or…?
Dr Patricia Lewis
You start then.
Joyce Hakmeh
Yeah, I mean, of course, like, you know, we have to see that in the context of the existing geopolitical tensions, right, and we can’t see it separately from everything that is going on. And only a few weeks ago, the UK and the US and Canada came together, accusing Russia publicly of cyberattacks against vaccine organisations and organisations that are developing these vaccines. So, in that sort of context, you know, you do understand that, you know, there is a very high level of distrust between these countries, which can be unfortunate to the development of a good response and solid response for the vaccine. But I don’t think that is something that we can see separately from the ongoing tensions that have existed and are for several years, and as we’ve been saying from the beginning of this webinar, you know, everything that is happening has been happening before. COVID has only helped to accelerate these events and actually, putting the stakes at the higher level.
Emma Ross
Patricia, do you want to add anything on that, or…?
Dr Patricia Lewis
No, I think Joyce is absolutely right. I think also, it’s very much a question of trust, but there will be countries that will take up the Russian vaccine. I mean, I think that this is where the WHO really needs to come into its own, in terms of, you know, the standards that are set for vaccine trials. Russia’s not the only one where there have been questions raised about that. The ways in which Politicians talk about these vaccines and the way – the trust that the public will have in vaccines, I think that’s actually a very big security issue and the understand – and along with the trust, the understanding of what a vaccine can and can’t do, I think is really important. So, there’s a lot of talk on this in the scientific press, in the medical press, I know, I’m not sure how many people understand it in the wider public.
Emma Ross
And thank you for that, Patricia, because you’ve just previewed one of our future webinars.
Professor David Heymann CBE
Let me just come in on the vaccine, because what really this shows, no matter which country is developing a vaccine, is that there needs to be transparency in what’s going on. The reason people don’t understand the Russian vaccine is because they’ve not been transparent with the data that they have already and the data that’s necessary to licence a vaccine. And so, if a country is not transparent with its data, then it can’t expect that countries that do have transparency in what they’re doing will accept what they’re doing. So, it’s many different reasons, it’s not just a geopolitical reason, it’s also a scientific and technical reason, that people need to see what’s going on and need to understand and that requires transparency.
Emma Ross
Okay, great. Unfortunately, we’ve only got two minutes left, so I should probably wrap up now, ‘cause I’m, trying to think – every time I try and squeeze in one last question, it runs over. So, I’m not going to do that because I know you all have to go, but that’s pretty much all we have time for today. So, Patricia and Joyce, a huge thanks for joining us today, really fascinating conversation that has taken David and I out of our comfort zone, but an important effect on the pandemic that doesn’t get much play in the pandemic science discussion circles compared with other topics. So, thank you for broadening our horizons on this. And thank you all, for those who tuned in to this, I hope it was interesting to you for us to go a little bit out of our zone, and please join us next week, when we will be going back into the outbreak response type stuff, where we’ll be talking about compliance and defiance, that crucial aspect of any epidemic response, getting the population engaged and co-operating with the effort to stop transmission. And we’ll be talking with Olivia Tulloch on that and that’ll be next week, one week from today. So, thank you all for joining us and wishing you a great rest of the day. Bye.
Professor David Heymann CBE
Bye.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Bye, thank you.
Professor David Heymann CBE
Thank you.
