Meeting at the luxury resort at Carbis Bay, near St. Ivess in Corwall, the G7 [Group of Seven], including the U.K. [host], U.S., Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and European Union, starts tonight with a posh dinner including Queen Elizabeth and members of the Royal Family. Despite all the pomp-and-circumstance, there are critical issues related to the novel coronavirus AKA SARS CoV02 or Covid-19 pandemic, especially vaccine availability, new Delta Indian variants ravaging the U.K. and, most importantly, the origin of the virus that G7 won’t address. U.K Prime Minister Boris Johnson, U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime MinisterYoshihide Suga, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel must address the origin of the pandemic.
India and Australia were also invited to attend the meeting, with Russia and China, noticeably absent by design, since the G7 was established in 1975 to represents the world’s democracies, not authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. China is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, since the economies of all Western democracies are dependent on Chinese manufacturing. Russia was added to the G7 in 1997, under the reforms of the late Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Russian Federation was dropped from the G7 in 2014 after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea. Biden is slated to meet Putin June 16 for a Geneva summit, where he hopes to put U.S,-Russian relations back on track after hitting post-Cold War lows since taking office Jan. 20. Biden’s been under pressure from the Democrats and Republicans to confront Putin on human rights abuses.
When the G7 gets down to business, the Covid-19 global pandemic will be one everyone’s minds, especially how to get industrialized and developing countries more vaccines. Before heading to Carbis Bay, Biden committed to delivering 500 million does of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson-Jansen vaccines. Vaccines rates in the U.K. are over 50% using primarily the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine. But the U.K. has been dealing with the new Indian Delta variant, with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson considering more shutdowns to control the spread. Biden enters the G7 with about 54% of the 330 million U.S. population with at least one dose, hoping for 70% by the July 4 holiday. G7 ministers will focus on the pragmatics of vaccine delivery, especially now that the Delta variant is ravaging the U.K. and soon to spread to other countries, including the U.S.
G7 ministers should hear the best evidence available about he origin of the deadly virus that’s infected 175,829,827 and killed 3,795,331 worldwide, plunging the world economy into recession. While there are signs of global economic recovery, the industrialized and developing world deal with incalculable economic losses from the global pandemic. G7 ministers have a right to know whether the virus occurred naturally in Wuhan, China or was manufactured in a Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV] bio-weapons lab. Wreaking so much death and destruction around the planet, the G7 deserves to know how another future infectious disease crisis can be avoided. If it turns out the Covid-19 global pandemic was man made, the world needs to know who’s responsible and what can be done to prevent a future disaster. It’s doubtful that the G7 ministers will spend any much time on the origin of the virus.
Biden has said correctly that there can be no real economic progress without defeating the deadly novel coronavirus and all its new variants. U.S. officials are prepared to deliver some 500 million vaccine does to slow the spread of the virus now devastating countries like India, Brazil and several African nations where vaccine availability has been sparse. U.S., U.K. and European Central bankers have to agree, despite whatever signs of temporary inflation, to keep monetary policy accommodating economic growth for the foreseeable future. G7 minister will no doubt revisit efforts at climate change, requiring the world’s most industrialized powers to redouble efforts to reduce carbon pollution. U.K.’s Boris Johnson hopes to resolve any remaining trade issues after leaving the EU Jan. 31, 2020. Biden spoke with Johnson about preserving the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.
When it comes to the most pressing world problems, the G7 can pledge in their communiqué a commitment to get Covid-19 vaccines to as many world citizens as possible, while, at the same time, central banks committed to an accommodating monetary policy. When it comes to forcing multinational corporations to pay more tax, there’s little the G7 can do to enforce collections. G7 ministers want a statement on global health but must first find out, no matter how controversial, how the deadly pandemic started. If evidence points to illegal biological weapons experiments in Wuhan, China, the G7 must forcefully express their commitment to hold China accountable for the deadly consequences. It’s not enough to talk about the global health system. China must be held accountable for illegal experiments on bat coronaviruses throwing the world into a global health and economic crisis
