Posted on 01/27/2021 5:11:20 AM PST by Kaslin
On Thursday, Anthony Fauci informed the World Health Organization that the Biden administration will participate in WHO's vaccine-sharing project. That reverses President Donald Trump's "America First" approach. Fauci says the goal is to ensure "equitable access" to vaccines for all countries in the world, rich and poor alike.
Americans scrambling to get vaccinated have a right to know how sharing doses with poor countries will affect their own ability to get vaccinated.
Biden is coming under pressure from the public health community to share the vaccine supply the U.S. has prepurchased before all Americans who want shots receive them.
The vaccine sharing project, with the acronym COVAX, raises money to buy vaccines for poor countries and asks the wealthier countries to donate actual doses. The COVAX dose-sharing principles, released Dec. 18, are causing controversy in France, England, Canada and other countries struggling to get their own populations vaccinated. COVAX wants countries to share their doses as they receive them, rather than waiting to see what's leftover. So far, Norway has agreed.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says it's unfair for younger, healthy adults in countries like the U.S. to get injections before the frail and elderly in poor countries. He calls it a "catastrophic moral failure."
Similarly, Kate Elder of Doctors Without Borders objects "if a healthy 20-year-old in New Jersey is getting vaccinated before a front line health care worker in South Sudan."
Bruce Aylward, a WHO adviser, claims it's unacceptable for a country to vaccinate its entire population before offering doses to the highest risk inhabitants of poorer countries.
Duke University public health experts also argue that high-risk groups in poor countries should get the vaccine before the U.S. public. A report from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center complains that wealthy countries are monopolizing the initial supply.
Thursday's White House statement on vaccine sharing says the U.S. will comply once there is "sufficient" supply here. What does "sufficient" mean? When just those at highest risk are vaccinated, as globalists propose, or when shots have been offered to all Americans? The public needs a clear answer to that question.
There are powerful reasons to oppose COVAX's vaccine-sharing principles.
First, U.S. taxpayers poured billions into Operation Warp Speed to develop the vaccines with the understanding they'd get a large share of initial production. When Trump refused to join COVAX, The New York Times slammed the decision as "vaccine nationalism," but Americans desperate to get vaccinated are unlikely to be worried about political correctness.
Second, the U.S. is striving to reach herd immunity by summer, which scientists predict will require about 70 percent of the population to be vaccinated. Diverting some of the vaccine supply to COVAX would endanger that goal.
On Monday, the International Chamber of Commerce joined the call for equitable distribution of vaccines, arguing that helping poor nations will benefit the economies of wealthy ones. True in the long run, but vaccinating a quarter of the population of every country, as COVAX proposes, would necessitate the US and other developed countries giving up a return to normal this year.
Third, as new virus variants emerge, vaccination becomes even more a race against the clock. Otherwise a variant could appear that is not susceptible to the vaccine. Moderna announced Monday that its vaccine is somewhat less effective against the recently identified South African variant. People may need yearly boosters against emerging strains.
In the last two weeks, both the European Union and the U.S. have been hit with unexpected news about manufacturing setbacks. Monday the European Union actually threatened to ban Astra-Zeneca from exporting any doses until it meets its contractual obligations. The EU is putting its own people first.
That's a lesson for America. Decisions about vaccine sharing should not be left to public health "experts" whose globalist views are now ascendant in Washington, D.C. Helping the world is important, but America needs to take care of its own first.
I think fauci is a snake in the grass. Always had a bad feeling about him.
Yes
mRNA vaccines are cheap and easy to produce. This doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. That being said, America first.
Imagine if we didn’t even have a vaccine to distribute. Under Biden’s regime we wouldn’t have a distributable vaccine for another 3 years. I’m sure the Democrats would be perfectly fine with that. It causes that crisis which will enable them to implement more restrictions to control “the masses”.
Vaccinate all democrats first
Then wait 6 months
We paid for the R&D on these vaccines, we should first vaccinate all in this country who are the most vulnerable. Or is that just another lie of the democrats that we should protect the most vulnerable first? Hypocrites and lying bastards!
Still not seeing those promised $2,000.00 checks to struggling Americans going out the door right away either.
Oh wait... I know the buzzwords for this. Give me a sec. Xenophobic, and uh... vaccine nationalism! Yay! Give me a cookie!
/s
This is why there is no supply in the US. The shelves are bare.
You can have mine. No thanks.
I think it should be illegals and or democrats first.
Use Americans as Big Pharma lab rats? Screw that.
In this case, I say put America Last.
Let them do their creepy experiments somewhere else.
The United States does not have a population vaccinated with the TB vaccine, which has greatly helped poorer nations keep the death rate low, relative to the U.S.
So yes, getting the U.S. population vaccinated asap is a priority. We do need to share with poorer nations when we can though, because if we don’t, immune compromised people without access to the vaccine will end up catching the virus which will then have a longer time in their compromised immune systems, which will allow the virus to mutate, and it only takes one bad mutation to cause the next pandemic. Thanks a lot globalism!
and you can have mine. We’re even now, correct?
Virtue signaling is of higher priority than virtue.
If they want to go that route than they need to vaccinate the entire U.S. population with the TB vaccine immediately if they are in any way shape or form interested in parity.
I’m 73 years old. I have yet to be offered vaccine by either the VA or the State of Nevada. I suspect that vaccine meant for me are going to younger pols and celebrities. Now they will go to third world UN plutocrats.
Heard the other day that the soonest any more checks would be distributed is end of Feb.
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