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

COVID & MFA REALITY CHECK – June 12, 2022

1,007,975 Total COVID19 deaths in US to date*

403,190 US COVID19 deaths prevented with MFA**

*Harvard University Daily Tracker

**Lancet Comm, Feb 2021

This is now our 122nd consecutive weekly PDA Online Town Hall since #COVID19 first hit the U.S. in the spring of 2020, and today once again, we must report that the United States continues in its disgrace as the world’s leader in total deaths due to this public health nightmare. 

The Harvard University tracking center places today’s figure at an estimated 1,007,975 COVID19 U.S. total deaths to date.  And that means, as we know, that some 403,190 of these COVID19 victims would still be alive today if we had a #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll (MFA) system in place to deal with this ongoing crisis.  

Again, that’s over 1,000 COVID19 preventable deaths just this week, or over 150 COVID19 deaths per day, prevented with MFA.

This solution is obvious to public health experts and economists, but pay-to-play politicians persist in their perverse protection of the status quo, at least here in this most uncivilized of the world’s most advanced countries.

The U.S. currently is believed to be only 67.3% fully vaccinated.  That puts us ranked in the world this week at No. 65 – still just behind Mozambique and Sri Lanka, and just ahead of El Salvador and Mongolia, nowhere near Canada, France, and Taiwan.

And Wyoming is still the worst state in COVID vaccination rate, this week at only 51.2%, more than 10 percentage points below the world’s average of 61.4% of population fully vaxxed.  Yippee-yi-yo, Cowboy State.

The rate of COVID cases and especially the Omicron variant, while still increasing slightly in some places like the U.K., Germany, and Italy, now appears to be leveling off for now in many other places worldwide, including here in the U.S., and even decreasing in others like South Korea.  Hospitalizations and more serious cases and deaths remain largely among the unvaccinated.

And the related good news this week regarding vaccinations is that the FDA is on track to finally approve emergency use authorization in children 5 years old and younger by later this month.  This will potentially cover about 18 million more of our population here in the U.S. that were previously unable to be vaccinated, reducing the rate of transmission of existing COVID19 variants and evolution of even more variants substantially, if we are able to get those young children immunized.

Of course, all of that depends on just how much trusted and factual medical information can get through to the parents of those young children with which they can then follow through on protecting them and their young and extended families.

In fact, just this week, researchers at Harvard and Mass General reported results of a study on babies who had prenatal COVID19 with higher rates of early signs of brain development disorders, that could possibly lead to autism or bipolar disease, on the order of 86% more likely than babies whose mothers were infection-free during their pregnancies.  That was a finding that they called a “wake up call” for pregnant women to get vaccinated, and by extension should be equally imperative to get their young children and their entire family vaccinated as well.

Now, will that kind of essential scientific information get out to those young families, or will they believe the misinformation so prevalent and which is just as virulent as any biological vector that we’re up against?  

All around the world, and especially here in the U.S., where commercial interests especially coming from big insurance and big pharma are so dominant, we are being manipulated and mislead, and precluded from having what we know we really need, the factual scientific information, and the needed resources and delivery systems to deal with all of this.  And in particular here in the U.S., what we need of course, is a universal Healthcare system of MFA.

It’s past time that we make it happen.

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.