By Dr. Bill Honigman, Healthcare Human Rights, Coordinator – Progressive Democrats of America

COVID & MFA REALITY CHECK

987,252 Total COVID19 deaths in US to date*

394,900 US COVID19 deaths prevented with MFA**

*Harvard University Daily Tracker

**Lancet Comm, Feb 2021

This is our 114th weekly PDA Online Town Hall since #COVID19 first hit the US in the spring of 2020, and today, Easter Sunday, we must report once again that the United States continues as the world’s leader in total deaths due to this disease.  And in the spirit of rebirth and renewal, we once again look to the answers, plain as a new day dawning, to the question of what needs to be done to stop this madness.

A staggering 987,252 of us in this country have now died from COVID19.  That’s 3,504 more who have died since last week’s reporting, a 9-11’s worth of new tragedy just this week.  And once again, according to public health experts and social scientists that means that an estimated 394,900 now of those total U.S. pandemic deaths would have been prevented, if we had such a plain-as-day solution, namely a #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll system of Universal Healthcare in this country.

The U.S. currently is thought to be only 66.4% fully vaccinated.  That puts us ranked this week still at No. 63 in the world, “We’re 63, we’re 63!” – still just behind Nicaragua and just ahead of El Salvador. 

And the worst U.S. state in total population fully vaccinated is still Alabama, at only 50.9%, which means it now falls even further behind the global average of 59.4% of the world’s population fully vaxxed to date.  That’s a full 9.5 percentage point failure for our worst state of the union, the weakest link in our chain.

World cases of COVID19 and its variants continue overall in decline, although reports of surges in some places such as China and Philadelphia have officials in those regions concerned enough to take extra measures recently, and need to be watched closely by us all.  

Overall, however, there is a feeling that despite even devastating personal losses nationwide, and physical and emotional trauma to many that are ongoing, this pandemic is largely behind us.  In fact, polling data published this week showed only 1 in 10 Americans now consider COVID to still even be a crisis.

Nonetheless, recognizing the shear quantity of devastation, and the call for renewal of effort to portend better outcomes, especially at this season of rebirth, these words from Ed Yong at the Atlantic this week were much appreciated,

“In just two years, COVID has become the third most common cause of death in the U.S., which means that it is also the third leading cause of grief in the U.S.  Each American who has died of COVID has left behind an average of nine close relatives bereaved, creating a community of grievers larger than the population of all but 11 states… Deaths from COVID have been unexpected, untimely, particularly painful, and in many cases, preventable.  The pandemic has replaced community with isolation, empathy with judgment, and opportunities for healing with relentless triggers.  Some of these features accompany other causes of death, but COVID has woven them together and inflicted them at scale.

He continues,

“In one million instants, the disease has torn wounds in 9 million worlds, while creating the perfect conditions for those wounds to fester.  It has opened up private grief to public scrutiny, all while depriving grievers of the collective support they need to recover.  The U.S. seems intent on brushing aside its losses in its desire to move past the crisis.  But the grief of millions of people is not going away.”

And neither are we.

Onward to Medicare for All and Healthcare Justice!

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Watch the previous PDA Healthcare Emergency Town Halls here.

Watch the previous PDA Sunday Progressive Town Halls here.