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

This week, thankfully, world new cases of #COVID19 continued with at least a leveling off or even a decline in most areas, and the effort to vaccinate the world continued slowly, with the percentage of the world’s population fully vaccinated, still of course disproportionately, and unjustly higher among the wealthier countries of the northern hemisphere.

The United States, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, is currently at 57.55% of our total population now vaccinated, which puts us at a ranking of 46^th in the world.  That’s just behind Hungary and Ecuador.  And the worst state in the U.S. is now Wyoming at 42.44%.  

All of which makes me wonder how we as a country will ever beat this thing.  Vaccinating the single largest cohort of Americans yet to qualify, namely those under age 12, can’t come quickly enough, although all of us might want to avoid Wyoming at least, sorry to say, for a good while yet.

The U.S. total COVID19 death toll has now reached 724,167, and therefore we are again mindful that according to public health experts some 40% or more of those deaths, or 289,666+ people, have died in this country needlessly due to COVID19.  That’s because we don’t have political leaders and a political system in the U.S. that’s capable of following the will of the people, to have what all other wealthy and advanced countries have, a system of Universal Healthcare, where all of the people get all of the Healthcare, namely a #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll system in place, capable of dealing with this public health crisis, and those yet to come from rising global temperatures most certainly heading our way. 

Politically here in the US, the situation at present is looking particularly bleak, of course, as Democratic Party unity appears to be falling by the wayside prompted by the extortion tactics of a few DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) in Congress.  These unscrupulous corporate Dems, for the sake of their own largess, are demanding more concessions and more money for themselves from those commercial interests already practicing predatory business models that are killing those of us who can’t afford our overpriced prescription drugs, or killing the chances for our children and our grandchildren to have a habitable earth.  

News outlets are reporting “dizzying amounts of campaign cash” already pouring into this next election cycle for the midterms, with AZ U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema reportedly taking in some $1.1 million this last quarter alone, mostly from pharma and financial institutions, and in the middle of negotiating the infrastructure bills, no less.

And WV U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin appears on the brink of having forced significant concessions from the White House to remove renewable energy projects from the President’s own Build Back Better Act which is, of course, just incredibly foolish, short sighted, and will only end up costing us trillions of dollars more in the long run to deal with the catastrophes and public health nightmares of traumatic weather and climate, on the back end.

Is this just too heavy a political lift for President Joe Biden, as the de facto leader of his party?  What more needs to be done, by those of us who are engaged and determined to not sit idly by, to make this happen?

A momentary reprieve from COVID19 and its deadly variants, is allowing for some more street presence for activists in DC, and in capitals and town centers around the country, once again.  And undoubtedly, more door-to-door canvassing, public forums, and political organizing will be safely resumed soon, hopefully in time for these mid-terms.

But will we use the lessons of the COVID19 pandemic in our advocacy?  Will we see our neighbors, co-workers, family members in holiday conversations, and fellow community members in public forums, able at all, to look at least a little bit beyond the screaming matches of hyper-polarization and identity politics, to the obvious solutions of a publicly funded and prioritized Healthcare system, to deal with a public health emergency such as we have now with this pandemic?

And again, as an active engaged citizenry, if it’s left to us to do so, how do we then make that happen?

Indeed, what, when, who, and how?

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