Pandemic points to need to work together as Italy hosts G-20

MATERA, Italy (AP) — With the pandemic providing painful lessons on how interconnected the world is, ministers from nations accounting for more than half the world’s population were meeting in Italy on Tuesday to explore how to better cooperate, including on vaccines and climate change efforts.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio cited both as areas where it’s imperative that countries pull together. He opened the appointment, attended by foreign ministers and development ministers from the Group of 20. Together the G-20 nations account for some 80% of the world's GDP.

Some ministers were participating remotely because of COVID-19 travel concerns, including from China, Russia and Brazil.

“In an interconnected world, multilateralism and international cooperation are the only effective instruments in facing global challenges," Di Maio said. “We have had an example of that with the vaccines.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken built on Di Maio's premise in his opening remarks.

“To bring the pandemic to an end, we must get more vaccine to more places,” Blinken said. “Multilateral cooperation will be key to stop this global health crisis.”

Blinken took the occasion to tout U.S. contributions to COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to get vaccines to needy nations, which include around 500 million Pfizer doses and 80 million other doses.

While some wealthier countries are struggling to convince ever more segments of their populations to be vaccinated against the illness that has claimed nearly 4 million lives worldwide in confirmed death tallies, poorer nations, especially in Africa, are desperate to receive vaccine supplies, with only a tiny fraction of their people having access so far to the injections.

Scientists and many political leaders have warned that the...