2022 RI H1 Econs Prelims QP

8823/01/Prelim/Y6/22 © RI 2022 [Turn over RAFFLES INSTITUTION 2022 YEAR 6 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION Higher 1 ECONOMICS 8823/1 Paper 1 30 August 2022 3 hours Additional Materials: Answer Paper READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Write your name, index number and CT class on all the work you hand in. Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper. You may use a soft pencil for diagrams, graphs or rough working. Do not use paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid. Answer all questions. The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each part question. Use the cover sheets and tie your answer to the questions separately. This document consists of 4 printed pages and 2 blank pages.

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8823/01/Prelim/Y6/22 3 © RI 2022 Answer all questions. Question 1: Pharma Mia, here we go again Figure 1: Share of population at least partially vaccinated Source: https://www.vox.com, 9 November 2021 Extract 1: How to think about vaccines and patents in a pandemic Tech has, potentially, saved hundreds of thousands of lives from the novel coronavirus pandemic. Cutting-edge biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) have allowed scientists to develop vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year, which is the fastest in terms of vaccination development for a major disease. With any luck, the world will be awash in COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year. For now, though, it is not, and of the billion or so doses that have been produced the vast majority have been administered in richer countries. Deaths, by contrast, a re increasingly concentrated in poorer ones, like India, where only nine in every 100 people have been jabbed, compared with 64 in America. Some governments are floating radical options to remedy the mismatch. India and South Africa proposed that members of the World Trade Organisation waive intellectual- property (IP) protections for COVID-fighting technologies, including vaccines. Increasing the number of manufacturers globally would reduce prices, making vaccines more affordable to poorer countries. It would stabilise supply, minimising disruptions of the kind that occurred when India halted vaccine exports amidst a surge of COVID-19 cases. It is, therefore, essential to remove the legal barriers that hinder the scaling-up of the global vaccine production. Yet industry interests are right to say that liberating vaccine IP would not unleash a flood of new production. Most of the world’s vaccine- making capacity is already in use. Other more challenging constraints on production include the limited availability of raw materials and expertise needed to safely produce doses. Ex port restrictions by governments also interfere with supply chains. Arguments for retaining IP protections maintain that patent holders are the rightful owners of their inventions and are thu