There is no denying that government investment has been instrumental in finding the vaccine in the first place. The UK government alone has spent a meagre sum of £175 per head, £11.7 billion in total in preordering vaccines.

Yet, rather than a case for paternalistic government intervention, the quest for vaccines has instead highlighted the importance of free market incentives in government decision making. 

As the Adam Smith Institute points out, every additional week of the pandemic doesn’t only cost the taxpayer £6 billion, but also reduces economic activity by £5 billion. It doesn’t take an A level economist to tell you that that is a negative accelerator. In just two weeks post vaccination the state coffers will be better off - investment into vaccines by governments is motivated by the desire to ensure the smooth working of the economy. The famous Adam Smith words read, ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Vaccines are no different - the government, in a true Machiavellian sense, rely on a stable economy for their electoral success, hence rolling out the vaccine is in their and our shared interest thanks to the free market. 

Onto distribution, where there is one key player: Israel. It seems their response to getting the vaccine into arms has been completed with Mossad inspired efficiency. As of January 1st, Israel had vaccinated 10% of its population, 3 times that of its closest rival, Bahrain, at the time. Why, one may ask? The simple answer is healthy competition. Whilst healthcare insurance is universal, Israeli citizens get the choice of 4 healthcare funds, Clalit, Maccabi, Meuhedet and Leumit. Despite all being non profit, in order to stay solvent they have to compete for customers. Not typically a fountain of knowledge, Jeremy Clarkson put it eloquently in his recent Times column, “We are behind Isreal because it has 4 national health services that compete with one another for patients.” Since the largest of the four conscripts less than half of the population, competition is rife - they had to be ready to distribute the vaccine, otherwise customers would simply leave. Even the firm that brought the vaccine to the funds, the logistics unit of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, is a private TNC.

It is no surprise that Israel came out on top. Distributed in the pursuit of profit and administered under the pressure of customers switching to substitute services - the free market incentives proved paramount to Israel’s success.

On the other side of the coin, there is France.  It is fair to say their world dominance in recent history is restricted to the World Cup; about the best thing you can say about the start of their vaccination programme is that it cannot get any worst. Despite the EU authorising the vaccine on the 27th of December, France had administered only 516 vaccinations by January 1st. At this rate it would take France a measly 400 years to vaccinate its people. Yet this failure now speaks to deeper, more worrying cracks in the French state. Judging by the amount of money flowing into the states coffer’s every year, some 47.9% of GDP, one would expect them to be good at deploying state resources, yet Macron himself has described the pace as a ‘family stroll’. The doses are there, but the supply chain remains long, requiring in one case the cross country delivery by taxi. 84% of the French rely on one public fund for their healthcare - the issue is a lack of competition. 

Yet, the problems don’t stop there. Ever burgeoning bureaucracy is also to blame. The French health minister Olivier Véran described the doctors pre-vaccination visit 5 days prior to the appointment, and the 45 page guide on the vaccine as a, “token of confidence, for the French people.” Rather than, quite clearly, the confidence of speedy vaccination? France should have learnt from Matt Hancock in July, whose paper ‘Busting Bureaucracy’ was instrumental in improving healthcare in the UK. Put best by a ‘colleague’ of Hancock, “All of a sudden we could do everything we needed to do, quickly and efficiently – because of COVID. We coped fine without endless meetings and forms.”

France and Israel tell two very different stories. It is easy to look upon the more successful states and praise the role of bureaucratic government without appreciating the systems of free market incentives that sit behind the political front. Whilst somewhat uncalled for, Gavin Williamson’s answer to the question of why the UK beat others in approving vaccines characterises this perfectly. Speaking to LBC, Williamson said he wasn’t surprised the UK got there first, “Because we’re a much better country than every single one of them.” Recent suggestions from the Adam Smith Institute to award prizes to the best vaccine centres should also be welcomed with open arms.

The dominance of liberal capitalism has only vindicated the premise that humans are naturally competitive. Hence, what better a method to produce, distribute and inject vaccines than one that harnesses our desire to out perform our equals?

Freddie Cooke