The Dominican Republic severed ties with Taiwan three years ago. Country Email List Now, a Chinese plane has landed in Santo Domingo with a million doses of vaccines on board. The staging at the airport had a similar grandeur: photos with Chinese flags unloading cargo and speeches that speak of friendship and solidarity. Or the case of Guyana, which had recently allowed Taiwan Country Email List to open a commercial office. Beijing did not hide its anger. And after having "corrected" this mistake a few weeks ago, the president of Guyana, Irfaan Ali, received from Xi Jinping, by phone, Country Email List the promise of 20,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.
Almost simultaneously with the Chinese delivery of millions of doses to the Country Email List Dominican Republic, the first supply of the COVAX multilateral initiative, in which the European Union has a substantial participation, also arrived in the Caribbean: 14,000 doses of vaccines delivered to Jamaica on March 15. While COVAX may have a significant impact over time, at the moment its Country Email List deliveries are late and meager. The United States also joined the COVAX initiative under President Joe Biden, although US vaccines have so far played only a supporting role in the Caribbean. However, as the rapid vaccination campaign in the country progresses, this may change in a few months, when the United States becomes an exporter of surplus Country Email List vaccines.
For now, however, the dynamics of the vaccination campaign in Puerto Rico Country Email List and the US Virgin Islands shows the peripheral role of these US-owned Caribbean territories: Country Email List their vaccination rate is still lower than that of Georgia, the last of the 50 states of the Union. The other non-sovereign territories of the Caribbean also have little chance of carrying out Country Email List active vaccine diplomacy. In the Netherlands Antilles or the French overseas departments there is a European shortage of vaccines.