PDA’s Dr. Bill Honigman – CA Dem Party Senior Caucus Presentation 2018

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

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COVID & MFA REALITY CHECK

1,063,750 Total COVID19 deaths in US to date*

425,500 US COVID19 deaths prevented with MFA**

*Harvard University Daily Tracker

**Lancet Comm, Feb 2021

This is now our 141st 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 as the world leader in total number of confirmed deaths due to the coronavirus.  A travesty, really.  Shame on us.

The Harvard University daily tracking center is reporting the U.S. COVID19 total death toll today at 1,063,750, which means that an estimated 425,500 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).

Once again, that’s about a thousand more, just this week alone, specifically 1,001 more Americans who have died completely preventable and political deaths due to COVID19 and our collective lack of political will to pass MFA.  Outrageous!  

This week, world new cases and death rates due to COVID19 continued to be mercifully decreasing and in areas with some recent rise in incidence, such as in France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K., are now leveling off or even decreasing once again.  

Concerns for the much anticipated “winter spike” are still drawing attention to the newer more antibody-resistant variants, including especially now BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, and BA.5.2.1.7 also known as BA.7, are being monitored closely but their dominance remains at less than 10 to 12% of cases compared to BA.5’s current estimated 65% saturation.  Chinese officials are now reporting the presence of yet another variant of concern, the XBB subvariant, which might be especially apt to evade antibody protection after a previous BA.5 infection, which would mean more re-infections possible in the coming months should it become more dominant.

OurWorldInData.org is now reporting only an estimated 68.4% of world population have received even just one dose of the COVID19 vaccine, and still only 23.3% of those who happen to live in low-income countries primarily of the global south who have received their first dose of a COVID19 vaccine.  

The U.S. now has only 68.8% 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. 50, in this category, just behind Panama and Kuwait, and just ahead of Belgium and Norway.

And the U.S. worst state status for COVID19 vaccination continues to be Wyoming, still at only 52.3% of its population fully vaxxed.  Again, shameful.

This week, the CDC approved use of the Novavax monovalent booster vaccine.  It is believed safe and effective, and specifically targeted to those who have had significant allergic reactions to the other vaccines already in wide use here in the U.S.  Specifically, its active ingredient is viral surface protein, not mRNA, that prompts the desired T-cell response which leads to sufficient antibody production to protect against COVID19 infection and reinfection.  So, CDC is saying that those who are unwilling to take an mRNA vaccine, or who are possibly in an area where the mRNA vaccines are not available, should take Novavax, now.

And, speaking of the diversification and commercialization of therapeutics for COVID19, the political will to provide more, not less Healthcare as a public good rather than as a commercial prospect, this week is growing alarmingly worse, as Pfizer Pharmaceuticals announced a price increase in their vaccines from an outrageous government-purchased price of $19 per dose in this country, with an estimated cost-per-dose of only $1.19, to an even more outrageous commercialized predatory price of $130 per dose, ten times the government price, and 100 times the company’s own cost-per-dose figure.

A scandalous giveaway to corporate welfare.

This, as the White House and Congress are no longer somehow willing or able to fund these life-saving and sustaining public measures, and thousands more who will continue to die unnecessarily due to the current ongoing and declared Public Health Emergency, not to mention those yet to come with continued rising global temperatures and traumatic weather.

And all this apparently because Pfizer’s reported net income for 2021 was only $22B.

Outraged is exactly how we should feel about all of this, and at the very least outraged enough to vote and help Get Out the Vote (GOTV) for November 8th.

Thanks as always for whatever you’re doing, and onward to #HealthcareJustice and MFA!

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Watch the previous PDA Healthcare Emergency Town Halls here.

Watch the previous PDA Sunday Progressive Town Halls here.