The world's hopes for a coronavirus vaccine may run in these health care workers' veins

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In the corner of a COVID-19 ward in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a woman cleaning the mouth of an intubated patient carries an extraordinary hope for pretty much all of us.

Yet while nations fret over securing access to a vaccine, the potential geopolitical implications mean nothing in this ward."To volunteer is an act of love, to donate a little of yourself to people," said Abranches. Like many healthcare workers, she has been separated from her family for months of Brazil's pandemic, in order to avoid spreading the virus, and often failed to hold back her tears when asked about the loved ones she missed.

As we tour their daily routine of life-saving procedures -- a tracheotomy and extubation in just 30 minutes -- more staff reveal they've had the jab, and endure the routine checks and testing that follow. One is going to receive the trial vaccine this week. Another is thinking about it. Their boss, Professor Flavia Machado, said she is about the thousandth recipient.

Sinovac's trial began last week with now a handful of recipients in the São Paulo healthcare system. Yet an unexpected side effect has emerged -- not of the vaccine but the geopolitical race for it. A small fringe of angry Brazilians have railed on social media against the"China vaccine." They're echoing the earlier rhetoric, critics say, of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and the Trump administration about the"Chinese virus.

Kallas added that he does not see the vaccine alternatives as Chinese or British or American."These are mankind vaccines," he said."We need to have them available to fight this pandemic all over the world. And perhaps the ultimate solution is not going to be one vaccine, but a combination of them." She is reticent to discuss the role Bolsonaro and his supporters have played in fomenting anti-Chinese rhetoric."Our president, everything he says is important and the population believes him. He says ... that it's the flu. He's said bad things about China. I prefer not to talk about him."

 

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