When you’ve made a wrong turn, moving forward only takes you further away from your destination. It’s a lesson that is seemingly lost on many World Trade Organization officials, who continue to consider a proposal to invalidate intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines, long after it is It has become clear that these legal safeguards are not to blame for the low vaccination rate in many countries.

Let’s go back. In fall 2020, a group of countries led by India and South Africa called on World Trade Organization members to waive intellectual property rights to all COVID-related technologies.

The petitioners feared that the United States would first invent vaccines and then hoard its supplies or charge exorbitant prices to foreign buyers. India and South Africa have said they could solve this theoretical problem by forcing companies to hand over their patents and trade secrets, waiving the long-standing internationally agreed intellectual property rights that underpin so much global trade.

It wasn’t a convincing argument, but, panicked by the pandemic, some gave it the benefit of the doubt. Today, however, it has been completely debunked by real events.

As expected, American companies developed some of the most effective early inoculations. But fears of hoarding proved unwarranted. To date, more than 8.5 billion doses have been administered worldwide. Rich countries have donated large numbers, either directly or through the global distribution organization Covax. The United States has already sent more than 300 million donated doses overseas and has pledged to send a total of at least 1.1 billion.

Not only have fears of a vaccine shortage not materialized, analysts actually expect a glut of doses by next summer. Total global production of vaccine doses this year is expected to reach 12 billion, meaning we have enough capacity to meet demand even as new variants emerge. And following the World Health Organization’s recent emergency use authorization of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine – which is 90% effective – we will soon have millions more doses available for distribution worldwide. , through the manufacturing efforts of the Serum Institute of India.

In this context, the idea of ​​giving up intellectual property rights makes less sense every day. And that would have serious downsides: strong intellectual property protections guarantee long-term investments in pharmaceuticals and many other industries.

Yet some countries and organizations continue to push their case at the WTO — and the Biden administration sadly still says it supports an intellectual property waiver. Keeping this debate alive distracts from strategies that would actually deliver more bites, at a time when we urgently need to address distribution issues. While 58% of the world’s population has received at least one injection, rates vary greatly by region. In the Americas, at least 70% of the population has received at least one dose, while in the Middle East this figure is 49% and in Africa only 12%.

Much of the problem stems from the lack of infrastructure.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel recently reported that 70 million doses of the company’s vaccine were sitting in warehouses because destination countries could not receive, refrigerate or distribute them. Covax reports that half of the world’s poorest countries used less than 75% of the vaccines they received. South Africa has halted imports of Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines due to oversupply, even though it has only fully vaccinated a quarter of its population.

As Isabelle Defourny, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, wrote last month, immunization coverage in some of the hardest-hit developing countries is hampered by “the absence of a functioning health system; conflict-related insecurity; and the rejection of vaccines by a few people.”

There are things the United States, other donor countries, and organizations like Covax can do to speed up distribution. For example, donors should ensure that doses arrive in countries well before their expiry date. They should provide recipient governments with predictable timelines, including details on what types to expect, as different vaccines have different storage and dosage requirements.

Many recipient countries also need funds to build permanent vaccination centers staffed with fully trained staff, as well as support for testing and treatment.

These are real challenges, that’s for sure. But neither will be solved by continued efforts to gut intellectual property rights. It’s time to move on from an argument that the facts have rendered moot and focus on tactics that will actually help defeat the pandemic.

Joe Crowley represented New York’s 7th and 14th congressional districts from 1999 to 2019.