Public opinion on global COVID-19 vaccine procurement and distribution policies: A nationally representative survey in Aotearoa New Zealand 2022.

The World Health Organisation and many health experts have regarded vaccine nationalism, a "my country first" approach to vaccines procurement, as a critical pandemic response failure. However, few studies have considered public opinion in this regard. This study gauged public support for vaccine nationalism and vaccine internationalism in a representative survey in New Zealand (N = 1,135). Support for vaccine internationalism (M (mean rating) = 3.64 on 5-point scales) was significantly stronger than for vaccine nationalism (M = 3.24). Additionally, support for openly sharing COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing knowledge and technology (M = 4.17 on 5-point scales) was significantly stronger than support for safeguarding vaccine manufacturers' intellectual property (M = 2.66). The public also supported a utilitarian approach that would see distributions based on need (M = 3.76 on 5-point scales) over an equal proportional international distribution (M = 3.16). Akin to the few preceding studies, the present observations suggest that the public is likely to be more supportive of pandemic responses that are globally equitable and long-term orientated. Our findings have substantial implications for pandemic preparedness as the congruence or lack thereof of public vaccine-related values with government policies can affect public trust, which, in turn, can affect public cooperation. It may pay for governments to invest in proactive public engagement efforts before and during a pandemic to discuss critical ethical issues and inequities in global vaccine procurement and distributions.

Anthropause appreciation, biophilia, and ecophilosophical contemplations amidst a global pandemic.

In 2020, COVID-19 mitigation measures, including lockdowns and travel bans to curtail disease transmission, inadvertently led to an "Anthropause" - a unique global pause to anthropogenic activities. While there was a spike in ecological studies measuring Anthropause effects on environmental indicators, people's experiences of the Anthropause or its potential to inspire change were hardly considered. Hence, we aimed to measure people's appreciation of the environmental outcomes of the Anthropause, ecophilosophical contemplations about the pandemic, and experiences of lockdown-triggered biophilia (human's innate love for and draw towards nature) and test the hypothesis that these experiences would be consistently more prominent among the already environmentally inclined. To that end, we developed and tested three measures on a representative sample of 993 New Zealanders. Anthropause Appreciation received the highest overall mean ratings, followed by Lockdown-Biophilia and Eco-Contemplation. Pre-existing pro-environmental dispositions and behaviours did not consistently influence our three measures as expected. Demographic variables had little influence, while experiences of financial and mental health impacts due to COVID-19 had no influence. We interpreted the limited influence of explanatory variables as indicative of a degree of uniformity in people's experiences. High appreciation of Anthropause benefits suggests that the public may be supportive of policies and ways of living that can lead to similar outcomes post-pandemic - offering environmental policymakers and communicators a basis for action. Ecophilosophical contemplations and biophilic draw among the public suggest an awareness of the significance of the human-nature relationship - offering a symbolic global keystone for communicating and advocating conservation and the many values of pauses in life to connect with nature. Building women's environmental leadership capabilities and the ongoing greening of Christianity may be essential steps for global post-pandemic environmental behaviour transformations.