Charles Kenny

  • Home
  • Archives
  • Profile
  • Subscribe

About

Categories

  • A. Upside of Down (1)
  • B. Getting Better (2)
  • C. Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Utility (11)
  • D. Overselling the Web? (8)
  • E. Economic Development (219)
  • F. Globalization (156)
  • G. Corruption and Transparency (44)
  • H. Global Health (59)
  • I. Happiness (30)
  • J. Internet and ICTs (42)
  • K. Gender (29)
  • L. Education (20)
  • M. National Security (32)
  • N. Inequality (60)
  • O. Environment (26)
  • P. Other Topics (48)
  • Q. Academic writing (122)
  • R. Columns and general writing (400)
  • S. Speaking (1)
See More
Subscribe to this blog's feed

COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Rollout in Historical Perspective

A CGD Working Paper with Amanda Glassman and George Yang. At the start of 2022, profound inequities in the pace of access to COVID-19 vaccines and the level of coverage of COVID-19 vaccination remain, especially with regard to the world’s poorest countries. Yet despite this inequity, we find that global COVID-19 vaccine development and diffusion has been the most rapid in history, and this rapid scale-up is evident not only in high-income countries but also in upper- and lower-middle-income countries, home to the majority of the world’s population. This paper explores the historical record in the development and deployment of vaccines globally and puts the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in that context. Although far more can be done and should be done to speed equitable access to vaccines in the COVID-19 response, it is worth noting the revolutionary speed of both the vaccine development and the diffusion process, and the potential good news that this signals for the future of pandemic preparedness and response.

Contact Trace

Three years ago I wrote a 'novel'. Even got as far as getting an agent, and by golly my timing was good.  It was a story about a new infectious disease spreading worldwide and the bungling US response.  But in the end what the process demonstrated is that I should probably stick to non-fiction.  If you can't sell umbrellas when the skies are fast-darkening, maybe it says something about your umbrellas.  One editor's response from January 2020: "I thought the story had a certain resonance that might appeal to readers worried about real-world pandemics, but I didn’t always feel the plot had a fresh enough hook." That was kind: there are parts that I already cringe at having written. Still, I find it of minor personal historical interest, --not least that there were things I though were stretching plausibility in fiction that turned out to happen in real life a few months later.  Here it is.

5 Reasons to Be Optimistic About 2022

For Foreign Policy. More equitable vaccination, new vaccines, more sustainable power, India will be the world's largest country, renewed economic growth and some hope for tigers.

A Dark Pandemic Year Could Still Portend a Brighter Future

Maybe... for Foreign Affairs.

The Plague Cycle

Plaguecover

The Plague Cycle, was published by Scribner in January 2021.  I tweeted the draft of the book here and have written about some of what is in it in articles for Politico on disease and border control (which I also discussed with Martine Powers of the Washington Post); Slate on anti-vaxxers ,the need for a global treaty on antibiotics the first global vaccination campaign, and travel bans; Barrons on vaccination risks, MIT Technology Review on the role of the WHO; and then more on the WHO in the LA Times.   I also summarized parts of the book for a CGD note: Are We entering a New Age of Pandemics?  Richard Florida interviewed me about the book for Fast Company and Cardiff Garcia for NPR's The Indicator.  At the Simon and Schuster page for the book you can see some generous blurbs from Laurie Garrett, Steven Pinker, Gregg Easterbrook, Dorothy Porter, Michael Kremer, Francis Fukuyama, David Wootton, Richard Florida, Kyle Harper and Tim Harford. So far it has been reviewed by Kirkus, Booklist, Nature, Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, BBC History Magazine, The Diplomat, the Daily Mail, the Sunday Times, the Financial Times (and again in the FT as a summer reading recommendation), the Irish Independent, Environmental History, Andrew Batson, Diane Coyle, Duncan Green, Kaylie Seed, Cork City Library and AIER. There's an excerpt on Slate, at the OECD, and LitHub, I talked to the Progress Network about the book here, and discussed it with Romesh Ratnesar at Bloomberg, Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch, Greg LaBlanc at Unsiloed, Rob Ferrett on WPR, Steve Paikin on The Agenda, BFM Malaysia and Ireland's Big Issue.  I did book events at the Philadelphia Free Library, Utah State, the Hudson Library, the OECD (with pictures and very kind words from Joshua Epstein), the Tucson Festival and NYU, Nicholas Christakis at the San Antonio Book Festival, shared five insights from the book here, and did the Page 99 test here.  There was a CGD launch event with Judy Woodruff on January 26th and I talked to Felix Salmon about the book on Slate Money.  The Italian version ("La Danza Della Peste") was reviewed here and here.

 

You Do Not Need to Worry About the Bubonic Plague Squirrel in Colorado

For Slate. Title says it all.

The Pentagon Is Leading an Effort to Find a Vaccine. It’s a Mistake.

In Barrons on Operation Warp Speed and why the Pentagon should be part of but shouldn't be leading efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.

The World Health Organization isn’t perfect, but it needs more money and power, not less

In Technology Review.  

Nationalism Can’t Beat a Global Problem

For slate: America First can't beat a pandemic.

Pandemics Close Borders—And Keep them Closed

Leaders around the world have restricted nonessential travel to varying degrees, some sealing off their borders entirely, to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. In the past, these measures may have worked. But the history of disease-driven border lockdowns has some sobering lessons.  For Politico.

»