It’s time for a revival of the anti-apartheid movement, crossed with Act Up — the heroic campaign in the ’80s and ’90s against HIV/AIDS injustice — but this time against global vaccine apartheid.

There is no other issue that comes close to being as important. It’s not just about justice, and still less about charity. It is a matter of self-interest, because no one is safe until everyone is safe. Vaccine apartheid has built a giant variant factory that threatens us all.

With vaccination rates across much of the West high (although far from high enough), regions are beginning to open up from a year and a half of lockdowns and other public health measures. While the Delta variant is driving up case counts in Britain, the United States, and a few other countries in the Global North, this time, such surges in cases are not being mirrored by surges in deaths, thanks to the vaccines.