Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has become the 5th documented one since the 1918 Spanish flu, the most severe influenza outbreak of the 20th century. First discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, the coronavirus has rapidly spread worldwide and evolved among the human population. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of late May 2022, there have been 524,878,064 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,283,119 deaths.1 As a global response, vaccinating the world against this disease has led to the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. The vaccine race involved scientists around the world working faster than ever before to develop a remedy against the spread of the cruel disease. It may have not redrawn the geopolitical map, but it has at the very least sharpened the available trends, which remain subject to extensive academic research. Studies have addressed the negative trends for the European Union’s (EU) and the U.S. credibility in the Western Balkans amid the assertive vaccine diplomacy of Beijing and Moscow in the region.2 Some papers have analyzed the geopolitical use of vaccines by Russia while it seeks to improve the country’s image and strengthen its stakes.3 Meanwhile, others have analyzed the competing COVID-19 practices of the U.S. and China to a mass further clout in Latin America and the Caribbean.4 One thing is clear: the coronavirus pandemic has tested the global distribution of power and foreign policies of big players, in particular.
