Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Shashank Joshi,

filling in for Jason Palmer. Every weekday we give you a fresh perspective on the events

shaping your world. Last year it looked as though India had escaped the worst of the pandemic.

Those hopes came crashing down in the spring. Our correspondent New Delhi gives us a personal

reflection on the health crisis now engulfing the country. And museums have suffered in the

pandemic, but British museums which reopen today are in a specially bad shape. With government

funding drying up they have to find new ways to survive. First up though. Farmer's

suitable companies could provide nearly 11 billion covid vaccine doses this year, but the

vaccines can't come quickly enough. In the United Kingdom a quickly spreading variant that

was first detected in India is worrying health officials. We believe this variant is more transmissible

than the previous one. It could threaten the country's planned lifting of all covid restrictions

by June, meanwhile indoor gatherings and homes and restaurants are allowed to resume today.

The UK has vaccinated much of its population at lightning speed. So following advice from the

joint committee on vaccination and immunisation we will accelerate remaining second doses to

the over 50s and those clinically vulnerable. But the prospect of variants like these is prompting

it to order even more doses for booster jobs than the autumn. Meanwhile America has even

begun vaccinating teenagers. Yet rich countries have shared relatively few doses with poor and

mid-ling come ones. And every new case is an opportunity for a more infectious and

vaccine-resistant variant to emerge. Only 0.3% of vaccine supply is going to low income

countries. Trickle down vaccination is not an effective strategy for fighting a deadly

respiratory virus. Unless global supply keeps pace with what could become an insatiable

vaccine demand in rich countries, it could be a long while before vaccines filter down

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