A Child's Play
By Kerry Yang
This post is part of a series of opinion pieces in diverse mediums focusing on the theme “What makes you mad about global health?” These submissions are by McGill students who were part of the course PPHS 511 Fundamentals of Global Health in Fall 2021.
A Child’s Play
Onwards march the little Soldiers,
armed with nothing more than just a few drops
Their caps placed on two by two;
ready to be packed and sent into action
These privates and corporals are not to be shipped far.
Their battlefield is right within their backyard,
as small hands, covered in red and blue and little white stars,
stuck in the machinations of a time long past,
envelope each soldier and clips their wings,
“No need to fly so close to the sun”
the hands tell the soldiers as they yearn for their freedom,
itching for the chance to join the real fight
Not stuck at home among their brethren,
smothered by the selfishness of their creators
while the enemy continues to creep on
its strength unmatched and unchallenged.
As time marches on, the soldiers are forgotten and their usefulness wanes,
With layers of dust covering their once polished heads
Ozymandias would have been ashamed, his face curled in disgust
to see the current state of ruin
Two drastically different worlds emerge from the child’s hands
Where one forgets and the other is forgotten,
Yet there was never two, just one,
and that world is left in vain
Explanation:
Vaccine nationalism is very short-sighted and selfish since it has caused vaccine inequity, has made vaccines inaccessible to a large portion of the world (especially LICs) and has elongated the pandemic.
References:
Khan, A. What is ‘vaccine nationalism’ and why is it so harmful? Al-Jazeera. February 2021. Accessed at: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/2/7/what-is-vaccine-nationalism-and-why-is-it-so-harmful.
Acknowledgments:
We would like to thank Professor Madhukar Pai for setting and sharing this assignment results with us and the teaching assistants Alexandra Jaye Zimmer, Lavanya Huria and Angie Sassi for their support in coordinating the results.