In an open letter, a group of eminent global business and policy leaders has urged US President Joe Biden to demonstrate decisive leadership in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The group of 16 business and policy leaders raised concern over the rampant spread of the virus in places like India and the Philippines, and the likelihood of mutations perpetuating the world if left unchecked.

The US must act now to leverage rapidly increasing US domestic vaccine production, export ever-larger volumes of our surplus supplies, and go to work on the massive technical and logistical challenges to vaccine development on a global scale, it said. The US support for the intellectual property waiver being promoted by the WTO would make a little difference and could do harm. It does not consider the proper materials, equipment, training, and infrastructure necessary to manufacture the vaccine safely and successfully, the letter said. Observing that the world has come to rely upon the US leadership at times of great strife, the letter said that the ability of the American government, working in tandem with the private sector, to deliver innovative solutions that save lives and restore peace and stability is the very foundation of the US soft power.

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Prominent signatories to the letter are Ken Langone, chairman of the Board of Trustees of NYU Langone Health; William Cohen; Noel V Lateef from Foreign Policy Association; Carla A Hills; John D Negroponte; John F Maisto; Alexander Feldman and Suzanne Clarke from the US Chamber of Commerce. Your administration has committed USD 4 billion to Covax, the multilateral effort headed by the WHO to get vaccines into the arms of people in disadvantaged nations. You have also announced your intention to donate 60 million doses of our supply of AstraZeneca vaccine for global deployment. While these actions are a laudable and necessary start, by themselves they are far too small in scale to turn the tide of the global pandemic. We must do more, the letter said.