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

This is our 106th weekly PDA Online Town Hall since #COVID19 first hit the US in the spring of 2020, and today once again, we must report that the U.S. continues to lead in global pandemic deaths. 

A total of 933,529 people have now died from COVID19 in this country, and that means that 373,411 of those precious lost souls did not have to die, and would still be alive today, if we had a #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll system in place to deal with this ongoing public health scourge.  That’s according to social scientists and public health experts of the Lancet Commission Study published one year ago.  That’s science, not politics, that tells us that.

The U.S. remains woefully behind the other advanced nations of the world in vaccinations given at only 64.9% of our population fully vaccinated, and that puts us ranked at No. 61 now in the world.  Shameful.  That’s still just behind El Salvador, and just ahead of Sri Lanka.  And Alabama is still the worst state in the nation, at only 50% fully vaccinated, which is shamefully behind the global average of 55%.

The Omicron variant is declining now globally from its winter surge, but hospitalizations and other Healthcare resource needs remain high almost everywhere.  The new sub-variant strain of Omicron, known as BA.2 has become dominant in some regions but has for the most part behaved similarly to the parent strain at least so far, so it has not created any new surge of significance.

This momentary improvement has led authorities in many areas to begin relaxing restrictions, and even gone so far as to qualify COVID19 as no longer a “constant crisis”.  And the CDC is reportedly even now reviewing its indoor mask advisory for public places.

The specter of more variants and surges yet to come are still looming, and a vaccine for children 5 years old and younger is still eagerly awaited by many here in the U.S.  

Globally, the drive to vaccinate especially more of the world’s poorer countries continues now with the World Health Organization announcing this week that a number of sub-Saharan African countries will soon be receiving the technology needed to produce their own mRNA vaccines, which will mark a much-needed end to the dependence of these countries on sources outside of their own continent for these life-saving modalities.

And finally, while COVID fatigue has spilled out onto the streets in seemingly unpredictable settings around the world, like Ottawa and Brussels, the lessons to be learned from the tragic and pathetically poor response to this public health emergency here in the U.S., still appear to be going largely unappreciated in this country.  

Commercial interests continue to captivate American consciousness, misdirecting us away from solutions like Medicare for All.  And instead, they continually direct us to the shiny objects of personality politics and war as a distraction necessary for their corporate bottom line.

To that I say, bring on the candidates and challengers of the status quo, and let’s change all of that with the fierce urgency of now.

Thanks, and Onward!

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Watch the previous PDA Healthcare Emergency Town Halls here.

Watch the previous PDA Sunday Progressive Town Halls here.