America’s Come to Jesus Moment on Vaccines
There are moments in life when objective reality presents itself in such a way that one must make a choice: continue down the present path, or make a course correction. America faces such a moment.
For much of the pandemic, the U.S. had a president who first actively denied the existence of COVID-19, then downplayed the virus’s severity, then failed to take appropriate action as the pandemic claimed the lives of more than 400,000 Americans and destroyed the livelihoods of millions.
This president lost his bid for re-election and his party lost control of the Senate largely due to a twisted cocktail of incompetence and sociopathic disregard for human life.
Notwithstanding, this president and his party survived with their political base intact enough to gain seats in the House of Representatives, maintain control of the majority of state legislatures, and violently attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
For Republicans, politics is a team bloodsport, where party is more important than science, more important than America, more important than life itself. What explains this maniacal partisan allegiance? “Republican” is a stand-in for “whiteness.” Full stop. Since 1964. Pandemic be damned.
Enter President Joseph Robinette Biden, elected to heal the land by restoring competence, comity and common sense to the presidency. And unlike his predecessor, Biden believes science.
So what does science say about Biden’s vaccination plan?
A plan to begin widespread vaccination of all Americans by late summer or early fall leads to unnecessary additional deaths
Any delay on rolling out a massive vaccination program gives the virus more time to mutate beyond the reach of current vaccines, further leading to unnecessary additional deaths
The last few weeks have seen a steady drumbeat of scientists constructively pushing the Biden administration to be much more aggressive in its national vaccination strategy. Some have been met with derision:
I went to war with the White House Coronavirus Task Force starting in late spring or early summer summer. They implemented a deliberate disinformation campaign that downplayed the epidemic, discredited masks, and said COVID-19 deaths were due to other causes… In my circles, no one seemed to have a problem with my pushing back against the White House then. But now it’s different.
I’m not attacking the Biden White House. I’ve been very complimentary… But even that modest variation from the White House plan has been met with a strong reaction.
Peter Hotez
Baylor College of Medicine
source: Houston Chronicle
The reality is that America has the capacity to end this pandemic within its borders and the wherewithal to coordinate with international partners to end the pandemic globally. Mobilizing that capacity requires an active, hands on approach to coordinating the production and distribution of everything we need: vaccines, PPE, test kits, you name it.
But public coordination of private capacity is anathema to the American imagination at the present moment—that is, when it comes to efforts not involving war.
There are moments in life when objective reality presents itself in such a way that one must make a choice: continue down the present path, or make a course correction.
A come to Jesus moment.
With more than 463,000 deaths from COVID-19 in U.S.—fully 20% of all deaths globally—and 500,000 deaths expected by the end of February, America faces such a moment.
It is common to hear that the coronavirus pandemic has revealed and exacerbated the racial and economic disparities in American society. But little is said about the underlying assumptions that enforce those disparities.
It is no suprise then that while a decidedly anti-science Republican administration hesitated to use the legal authority of the federal government to scale up the production of life-saving PPE and ventilators, an outwardly pro-science Democratic administration is making only tepid use of the federal government’s legal authority to scale up the production and distribution life-saving vaccines.
Scientists cannot be the only ones pushing the Biden administration to do more to save lives.
We, the people, must demand it.
Despite dip in Covid-19 cases, expert says US is in the 'eye of the hurricane' as variants spread
“The vast majority of those cases are the B.1.1.7 strain, which was first detected in the UK and has now been spotted in at least 33 states. Experts say the highly contagious variant will likely soon become dominant in the US, and a new study found significant community transmission may already be occurring.” - Christina Maxouris, CNN
Biden’s new vaccine goal is more ambitious. It still isn’t enough.
“Initially, Biden committed to vaccinating 100 million Americans in his first 100 days in office, but now we know that won’t be sufficient. To interrupt virus transmission, we must fully immunize three-quarters of the U.S. population as soon as possible, preferably by the summer at the latest. That means roughly 500 million doses in five months — 100 million immunizations each month, not in 100 days. Biden said Monday that he might lift his goal to 1.5 million vaccines a day instead of 1 million, but that won’t be enough: We need to be vaccinating 3 million people every day.” - Peter Hotez in Washington Post
How Biden can fix the vaccine bottleneck
“Now that Pfizer and Moderna have figured out how to set up production lines for their emergency authorized mRNA vaccines, their manufacturing design plans could be replicated to more quickly to ramp up manufacturing capacity in much less time, with much less trial and error. Unfortunately, no other manufacturers possess the critical proprietary information needed to make these vaccines… In a situation like this, it's entirely reasonable -- and legal -- for the US government to step in and help alleviate some of these IP bottlenecks.” - Isaac Larkin in CNN
South Africa puts AstraZeneca vaccinations on hold over variant data
“South Africa will put on hold use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shot in its vaccination programme, after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild-to-moderate infection caused by the country's dominant coronavirus variant… Prior to widespread circulation of the more contagious variant, the vaccine was showing efficacy of around 75%, researchers said.” - Alexander Winning and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo, Reuters
Just 5 percent of vaccinations have gone to Black Americans, despite equity efforts
“So far, the U.S. has racial and ethnic data for only about half of the vaccine doses given. Among those, just 5 percent have gone to Black Americans and only 11 percent were given to Latino recipients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention… The CDC says 47 percent of vaccination data is missing information on race and ethnicity — a flaw public health experts say needs to be corrected as the pandemic enters a new, dangerous phase.” - Tucker Doherty and Joanne Kenen, POLITICO
The Wealthy Are Getting More Vaccinations, Even in Poorer Neighborhoods
“In the first weeks of the rollout, 12 percent of people inoculated in Philadelphia have been Black, in a city whose population is 44 percent Black. In Miami-Dade County, just about 7 percent of the vaccine recipients have been Black, even though Black residents comprise nearly 17 percent of the population… for New York City, white people had received nearly half of the doses, while Black and Latino residents were starkly underrepresented based on their share of the population… And in Washington, 40 percent of the nearly 7,000 appointments… were taken by residents of its wealthiest and whitest ward.” - Abby Goodnough and Jan Hoffman, New York Times