Viruses, Vaccines, and Antivirals: Why Politics Matters

144 Pages·2021·4.813 MB·English

by  Raj Chari, Isabel Rozas

Raj Chari and Isabel Rozas
Viruses, Vaccines, and Antivirals: Why Politics Matters
Viral Politics
Series Editors
Raj Chari, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Isabel Rozas, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Advisory Board
Patrick Bernhagen, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Andrea Brancale, Cardiff University, UK
Macartan Humphreys, Columbia University, USA
Sylvie Garneau-Tsodikova, University of Kentucky, USA
Tanusree Jain, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Robert Klemmensen, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Beth Leech, Rutgers University, USA
Marie Migaud, University of South Alabama, USA
Rickard Sandell, Universidad Carlos III, Spain
Laura Sudulich, University of Essex, UK
Donald Weaver, University of Toronto, Canada
Volume 1
Raj Chari and Isabel Rozas
Viruses, Vaccines,
and Antivirals:
Why Politics Matters
ISBN (Paperback) 978-3-11-076484-0
ISBN (Hardcover) 978-3-11-074358-6
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-074360-9
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-074372-2
ISSN 2747-6863
e-ISSN 2747-6871
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021943984
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Cover image: CROCOTHERY / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
www.degruyter.com
For Celia Chari Rozas

Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the excellent research assis-
tance performed by an amazing group of young scholars who form part of the
Viral-Politics project (www.viral-politics.com): Clare Elwell, Laura Grindle,
Xenia Kadar, Daire McCutcheon, Jack O’Neill, Alannah Owens, Adeyemi Rah-
man, Lily Rice, and Liam Smith.
We are indebted to Tony Mason, Gerhard Boomgaarden, Michaela Göbels
and all the team in De Gruyter for their insights, enthusiasm and encourage-
ment.We are also grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their excellent
suggestions.
Finally,we thank José Elguero for fantastic observations and Arlene Healy
for kindly ensuring access to resources through the Library at Trinity College
Dublin.
RC & IR, Dublin, July 2021
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110743609-001

Contents
List of figures VII
List of graphs IX
Chapter 1
Introduction 1
Chapter 2
Viruses, antivirals and vaccines 3
So … What is a virus? 3
A bit of nomenclature 5
Previous pandemics 8
Present pandemic: coronaviruses, viral replication and SARS-CoV-2
variants 12
SARS-CoV-2 detection 18
COVID-19, the disease 19
Treating COVID-19 infections: drug development 22
Treating COVID-19 infections: antiviral drugs 25
Treating COVID-19 infections: biologic therapies 28
A word on COVID-19 clinical trials 30
Preventing COVID-19 infections: vaccines 31
Conclusions 37
Chapter 3
Conceptualizing the four phases of a state’s public policy responses during a
pandemic: anticipating, containing, controlling and opening-up 38
Introduction 38
Modern states, the WHO, and need for policy guidance 39
The typology: conceptualizing public policy responses in a
pandemic 42
Phase 1: Anticipating and early virus detection 44
Phase 2: Policies to contain the virus 48
Phase 3: Policies to control and mitigate the spread of the virus 54
Phase 4: Policies aimed at opening up society and eradicating the
virus 60
Synthesizing the phases – the typology 67
VI Contents
Limitations of the typology 69
Conclusions 70
Chapter 4
Demonstrating the strength of the typology: examining key countries
globally 72
Justifying the countries examined 72
Methods of analysis 76
Presentation of findings and visualization of an ideal scenario 77
New Zealand: keeping the virus at bay 79
Europe: comparing Ireland and Germany 84
Canada and the US: very different neighbours 94
India, South Africa, and Chile: the large waves 101
Comparatively analyzing the vaccination rollout 108
Conclusions 111
Chapter 5
Conclusions 113
Appendix A
Supplemental information on methods of analysis 117
Phase 1: Anticipating and early detection 117
Phase 2: Strategies to contain the virus 118
Phase 3: Policies to control and mitigate the virus 118
Phase 4: Opening up and eradicating the virus 119
Bibliography 120