Tackling Covid-19: World must replace worn-out, insular beliefs with new norms 

Reverting to old nationalist norms by adopting an 'us-first' attitude to the vaccine and leaving poorer countries at the back of the queue is morally and practically wrong and will not work to end the pandemic

Rachel Albi, a foreign worker from Nigeria, receives her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination centre in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday. Tel Aviv City Hall and the Sourasky Medical Center started administering vaccines free of charge to the city's foreign nationals, many of whom are undocumented asylum seekers. Picture: AP Photo/Ariel Schalit

In December 1862, in the throes of the American Civil War, which pitted the norms of slavery against the norms of freedom, US President Abraham Lincoln presented his emancipation plan to Congress. 

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present,” he declared. “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”