With the United States hoarding COVID-19 vaccines and insisting on inoculating all its citizens before providing the vaccines to other countries, Washington is "alienating the world," an opinion piece published on Bloomberg's website has said.
"The world had hoped 'America First' would end" when the current U.S. administration replaced that of former President Donald Trump, but "it hasn't," said the article written by Mihir Sharma, a columnist with Bloomberg and senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in India.
The article cited U.S. declining to share vaccine supply with Mexico as an example, and said that the United States, along with many other rich countries, "has essentially chosen to corner the market on shots that are desperately needed elsewhere."
Unlike the United States, countries including China, India and Russia have started to ship millions of shots abroad, said the article published Friday.
"That both sides of the political aisle in the United States seem uninterested in either morality or logic when it comes to vaccines sends a dispiriting message," it said.
"No country with policies or politics so inward-looking and self-centered can hope to lead the world in the 21st century," it added.
