Mr. Jim Clarken:

I appreciate Deputy Flaherty raising the human impact of this because, at the end of the day, that is why we are here. We talked about the huge death toll of an estimated 19.5 million people. Of those, 14% have been in high-income countries, while the rest have been in poor- and middle-income countries. For every life lost in a rich country, four have been lost in a poor country. People in poorer countries are much more likely to die from this disease than those of us lucky enough to have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. Every minute, four children lose a parent or caregiver as a result of the pandemic. Considering this impact in the context of global human development, it is estimated that 90% of the world is worse off due to the effects of the pandemic. Some 160 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty, bearing in mind that we had been making slow progress to rid ourselves of extreme poverty. We had a long way to go, but we were making slow progress. We have now gone backwards and dramatically so.

The impact on women, in particular, has been devastating. Those who are on the front line, working in precarious, low-income jobs, have put themselves hugely at risk. The amount of unpaid care work, 90% of which is carried out by women in the first place, has dramatically increased. We know about the huge growth in violence against women and girls both in this part of the world and throughout the world. There has been a massive human impact to this. I really appreciate the Deputy raising it because at the end of the day it is up to us to minimise the human impact in any way we can. Clearly, a TRIPS waiver does not solve all of our problems but it gets us a long way there.