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

This week, world new cases of #COVID19 grew by another 3 million, with a global death toll now at about 4.8 million. This week also, again saw leveling or declining numbers in all countries except those with poorer access or greater resistance to vaccinations.  As Reuters reported on Friday, “More than half of all global deaths on a seven-day average were in the U.S., Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and India.”

And, The Economist reported this week that, “…adjusting for population, the death rate is now about eight times higher in America than in the rest of the rich world.”

Global vaccinations now stand at an estimated 34.3% of the world population, and that compares with the U.S.’ total percentage vaccinated estimated now at 56.1%, which is up by only 0.5% from last week’s 55.6% total, with the red states still only in the lower 40’s percentage range for their populations vaccinated.  

Once again, West Virginia is still the worst vaccinated state in the U.S., with only 40.5% of its population vaccinated to date, that’s up only 0.3% higher from last week’s 40.2%, despite their U.S. Senator and resister-in-chief to the Biden Build Back Better Plan, Joe Manchin, supposedly representing their collective lives and livelihoods in the U.S. Senate.

Very notably this week, the U.S. surpassed the 700,000 total COVID19 death toll, believed to be now 701,047 known dead, with 13,171 Americans who died from COVID19 just this week alone, an average of 1,881 U.S. COVID deaths per day. 

Of course, we know that based on solid public health and economic social science, about 40% of those 700,000+ dead, or approximately now 280,418 of those who have died from COVID19 in this country, would still be alive today if we had #SinglePayer expanded and improved #MedicareForAll in place.  

That would of course give us #UniversalHealthcare, where ALL of the people get ALL of the care, and where, as in ALL of the other advanced countries of the world, anyone and everyone can freely access a trusted primary care provider to have a conversation about the risks versus benefits versus alternatives of COVID vaccinations, or any other proposed medical treatments.  

That’s also where all medical comorbidities like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and unhealthy life styles could be freely discussed and a plan for treatment developed, and where trusted medical information can be offered to displace the misinformation that overwhelms the people of this country on a continual basis, leading us to mistrust science in favor of snake oil or horse paste being pushed on us by unscrupulous grifters with bad hair and flashy smiles.

And while this week did see some advancement with more booster shots, vaccines for younger children on the horizon, and a promising new anti-viral drug, mulnupiravir (mul-nu-PIR-a-vir) soon to be released, we also saw the struggle to expand Medicare and bring other needed human infrastructure, essential even to fight off this pandemic and those yet to come, seriously jeopardized by the likes of status quo politicians like U.S. Senators Joe Manchin, D-WV, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ.

This struggle is perhaps epitomized, I think, in this epoch battle to vaccinate everyone in this country, where author for The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, described just this week, what he sees as the explanation for America being ranked now 36^th in global vaccinations as due to our being, “unusually uninsured, unusually contrarian, and unusually polarized.”

Contrarian and polarized might just be in our DNA, but uninsured, that’s just a systems problem, with a very straightforward fix, expanded and improved Medicare for All.

The struggle for #HealthcareJustice continues.

RSVP HERE for the next PDA Healthcare Emergency Town Hall, Sundays, 4pm ET.

Watch the previous PDA Healthcare Emergency Town Halls here.