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MFA and COVID19 Update – July 25, 2021

Jul 26, 2021 | PDA Blog

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

This week, world case and death rates due to #COVID19 were decreased compared to recent previous weeks.  That’s despite spiking cases in most notably the US, the UK, and France, in particular thought due to the prevalence now of the Delta variant in these first world countries and what remains of vaccine-reluctant pockets within their populations. 

While some of these advanced countries are responding with forceful actions including vaccine passports, and reimposed mask mandates and other public health measures, others are relying on aggressive messaging in particular through their universal healthcare systems to compel even more of the vaccine hesitant to do the right thing and “get the jab”.

Here in the states, it’s now 499 days since the US first went into shutdown due to COVID19 last year, and according to the Harvard University daily tracker 610,426 Americans total have died so far due to this virus.  And as we know, 244,170 of those lost souls would be still be alive today if we had a #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll system in place to deal with this crisis.

Clearly, as we said last week and as we say here every week, we need more champions for this cause, and need them yesterday.

But I would like to drill down on this idea of vaccine refusal for just a few moments because so much is being said about it now, and rightly so, given that the new surge here due to the Delta variant especially in hospitalizations and deaths is now being referred to as the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.

If we look at both the misinformation and the politicization that is so often talked about as the cause for so much of this refusal, how does that square with the fact that so many can be compelled yet to get vaccinated if given a chance to talk with what has also been shown to be probably their most trusted source for medical decision-making, their own primary care doctor or other medical provider?

Given that the US has failed and continues to fail, despite at least initially leading in vaccinating its population, in preventing COVID19 deaths, how much of that is due to the fact that we have been conditioned and even rationed down to seeing our doctors on average 4 times a year compared to Japan’s 13 times per year?  

How much more accessible and proactively aggressive can a system like that be in getting over vaccine reluctance, admittedly brought on by monetization and politicization, but then brought to a place of reason with scientific evidence and data, especially from a trusted and valued, and frequently referred to source, as you have with freely accessible primary care providers in those other advanced countries of the world?

And why aren’t the pundits and politicians saying anything, anything at all, about this?

Clearly, our leaders need to first not let themselves be misled, or worse yet be misleading others down these false pathways of the blame game, holding Donald Trump or Fox News as primarily responsible, when the solution is and always has been to make them irrelevant, with solid scientific information from a trusted source that you can see or talk to freely and regularly, especially at a time of health care crisis such as we have now.

Dr. Anthony Fauci and his team are putting up the good fight, but what is needed to compel everyone to act for the good of everyone goes beyond what any one governmental officer or agency can do.  What’s needed is what every other advanced country in the world has that we don’t, Universal Healthcare where ALL of the people get ALL of the care, and unlimited access to those trusted sources of medical information that are both personal and personable.

And the surest way to get there, that we know from both public health science and economics, is a Single Payer expanded and improved Medicare for All system, that we should be implementing now, before yet another life is lost to misinformation, politicization, or any other preventable cause.  

Once again, COVID19 now with this Delta variant, is showing us that Medicare for All and the Green New Deal should have been implemented yesterday, and we need to support those public leaders who can show us that they get that, and can show us that they are fighting for that.

Onward!


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1 Comment

  1. Grace Betts

    What a great and simple explanation- solution to the question of how to help individuals change their minds about getting the shots-have a chance to discuss this with your doctor!

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