photo: Dr. Bill Honigman’s HC Forum Presentation 2017

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

COVID & MFA REALITY CHECK

1,085,475 Total COVID19 deaths in US to date*

434,190 US COVID19 deaths prevented with MFA**

*Harvard University Daily Tracker

**Lancet Comm, Feb 2021

This is now our 145th consecutive weekly PDA Online Sunday Town Hall that began when #COVID19 first hit the U.S. in the spring of 2020.  And once again today, we must report that the United States continues shamefully as the world leader among nations in total number of confirmed deaths due to the coronavirus.

The Harvard University daily tracking center is reporting the U.S. confirmed COVID19 total death toll today at 1,085,475, although CDC is reporting a smaller number at 1,073,115, which means according to the Lancet Commission Report of 2021, that between 429,246 and 434,190 Americans have now died from COVID19 unnecessarily, and would still be alive today if we had a system of Universal Healthcare like #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll (MFA).

Regardless of the published data discrepancy, this means thousands more Americans are still dying every week from preventable deaths due to COVID, because we are stalled in our efforts to have MFA and Healthcare as a human right.

This week, world new cases and death rates due to COVID19 continued at relatively low levels, still plateauing in the U.S., Russia, and now France, and but still increasing in case numbers in South Korea, Japan, Italy, and Brazil.

OurWorldInData.org is reporting now that only 68.4% of world population have received at least one dose of the COVID19 vaccine, with only 24.4% of those who happen to live in low-income countries, primarily of the global south, having received a first dose of a COVID19 vaccine so far.

The U.S. still has only 69.2% of its population with a completed initial series.

The Johns Hopkins Resource Center which ranks countries by percentage COVID19 vaccinations as first dose only, this week has the U.S. at No. 51, again in this category, still just behind Tuvalu and Panama, and just ahead of Kuwait and Belgium.

And the U.S. worst state for COVID19 vaccination continues to be Wyoming, again this week tied with Alabama, at only 52.7% of their respective populations now fully vaxxed.

An interesting side note here, according to Jonathan Last who reported in The Bulwark earlier this week, an ongoing study with preliminary findings suggesting that post-vaccine, Republicans accounted for about 80% or more of the excess deaths due to COVID than Democrats.  He says, “part of this is because of vaccine hesitancy, [and] part of it is because of the age profile of voters” in these categories.

Efforts by the U.S. Dept of HHS to fully vaccinate the population, including with the new boosters, continues this week to be thwarted by Congress’s resistance to approve additional COVID19 funding.  And this despite what Robin Caryn Rabin of the NYT pointed out earlier this week, that COVID hospitalizations are still as much as 27,000 Americans in hospitals on any given day, with more than 300 per day dying on average still from the coronavirus.

The “triple-demic,” as Dr. Mark Ghaly, CA Sec of Health and Human Services calls it, of rising COVID, flu, and RSV numbers, continues to take its toll.  Now also threatening holiday gatherings once again this year, the CDC is reporting this week that flu admissions in particular, are now the highest seen this early in the season since the flu season of 2010-2011.

All of this is now prompting public health experts like White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha, to reiterate the recommendation to “keep getting vaccinated, test when necessary, and wear masks in crowded public settings.”

I agree, and would only add that all of that would be better enabled and more likely to happen with a Universal Healthcare system like all the other advanced countries of the world already have, except, of course, for here in the good old USA.  “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A…”

Onward to Healthcare Justice and MFA.

Thanks for listening and stay boosted, stay healthy, and stay engaged!

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Watch the previous PDA Sunday Progressive Town Halls here.