This week, World Trade Organization members are due to make a decision on widening access to COVID-19 tests and treatments, but the U.S. and European Union, with the support of wealthy Asian nations, including Japan and South Korea, are pushing for a postponement.

While these countries continue to debate an issue for which there is an unambiguous moral and economic answer — there must be greater access — around 1,600 people are needlessly dying each day from COVID-19 around the world. And with every outbreak comes a chance for mutations that could generate a more deadly or contagious variant.

Even from the perspective of rich countries, not taking every action that could improve global access to COVID-19 treatments, tests and vaccines is foolish.

The world’s remarkable achievements in rapidly developing COVID vaccines have been matched by a remarkable failure in distribution. Low- and middle-income countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have been forced to wait at the back of the line for vaccines while wealthy countries hoarded more doses than they could administer.

The result has been a death toll borne disproportionately by the Global South. More than 1 million lives have been lost in Southeast Asia and over 5 million in South Asia.

This even though triumphs in developing vaccines was quickly followed by success in developing antiviral treatments.

The first generation of treatments, many of which could be easily administered at home, cut hospitalizations and deaths. One has shown effectiveness in preventing patients from developing long COVID, a condition that will cost the global economy trillions of dollars if left unabated.

Currently, hundreds of new treatments are in the pipeline. At least 78 are already in late-stage clinical trials. More than 5,000 applications for COVID-related patents have been filed, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization, with four times more of them related to treatments than to vaccines.

With only 20% of people in poor nations fully vaccinated, treatments are the only way to limit hospitalizations, deaths and economic losses. Yet high-income countries have grabbed more than 70% of treatments so far produced, according to the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, despite accounting for only 16% of the world’s population.

High prices have also been a barrier. Pfizer has charged more than $500 for each course of Paxlovid in some high-income countries and $250 in some middle-income countries. But the Clinton Health Access Initiative has estimated that a generic version could be priced as low as $25.

Meanwhile, despite a marked decline in testing globally, high-income countries continue to test people 50 times more frequently than do low- and middle-income countries, which now just test one in every 25,000 residents. Without timely and reliable supplies, these nations cannot take a test-and-treat approach.

Last June, WTO members agreed to ease export restrictions on generic COVID-19 vaccines. If this permission were extended to treatments and tests, that would spur greater production of, and access to, these important medical tools.

Treatments are easier to make than mRNA vaccines, and there are hundreds of generic medicine manufacturers in Asia, Africa and Latin America that could produce versions of antivirals like Paxlovid and new treatments in the development pipeline, given the opportunity to do so at scale for export sales.

The June deal included a commitment to decide by Dec. 17 whether to ease access to COVID-19 tests and treatments. In the subsequent six months, 290,000 people died of COVID-19. Yet wealthy countries are still dithering.

The multinational drug companies urging governments to oppose the WTO deal claim there is no problem to be solved. The U.S., meanwhile, is asking for time to study the imbalance between demand and supply with existing therapeutics. But with so many new treatments being developed, what is relevant is access to any and all effective therapeutics at a reasonable price.

Many low- and middle-income countries have been left out of the drugmakers’ deals to voluntarily license production of generic versions of COVID-19 treatments. As a result, swaths of Asia and most of Latin America can legally only buy the original versions at up to 10 times the price of generic formulations.

There is in fact no need for further delay or study. If adequate supplies of COVID treatments and tests at affordable prices were available, generic manufacturers would not set up production, regardless of any WTO waiver.

What is the true reason for the requested postponement? Pharmaceutical corporations’ all-out efforts to stop the WTO from easing restrictions on the export of generic COVID-19 treatments and tests is the strongest evidence that doing so would make a real difference in generating affordable supplies of these critical medical goods. The flip side of greater access, though, would be a weakening of the drugmakers’ monopoly power and a reduction of their profit margins.

Behind the scenes, drug companies are arguing that upending the rules is simply unnecessary, claiming there is adequate supply at affordable prices and that there is a lack of companies that could produce generic formulations.

If that were really the case, drug company profits would be unaffected by expanding the WTO export waiver. It is precisely because the drug companies know that doing so will make a difference that they and some of the governments that represent their interests are fighting so vehemently for a delay.

Global access to effective tests and treatments is a crucial element to economic recovery. From lost productivity to the disruption of supply chains and the impact of lockdowns, the world economy cannot face another wave of infections unprepared.

Negotiations at the WTO are not about a radical rethink of intellectual property rules relating to global health, although that is long overdue. At issue is only whether a rule limiting the export of generic diagnostics and medicines needed to test for and treat COVID-19 can be temporarily waived. This should be a no-brainer.

This small change could save the lives and livelihoods of millions and ensure we do not repeat the moral and epidemiological failures of the global vaccine rollout. Our governments need to prioritize people over corporate windfall profits.