vaccines | BIG GREEN

I’ve said this many times and in many ways (as far back as 2010), but I’ll say it again. Our pundit / journalist class is obsessed with air travel. Their reporting on the state of the industry is way out of proportion with most Americans’ experience of it. Many airline workers are out because of COVID, causing delays and cancellations, and the press’s hair is on fire.

Traveler’s tip: if your hair is on fire, don’t attempt to board a domestic flight. (International travel is fine.)

It’s not my intention to rant about this incessantly. I’m merely raising it as indicative of the gap between wealthy people’s experience of America and that of non-wealth people. There are many dangers facing poor and working class people in the U.S.; missing an early flight to Miami is not high on their priority lists, by and large.

COVID: The long and the short of it

Here’s another thing I’ve talked about repeatedly: I don’t understand why the Biden administration isn’t pushing harder on COVID. While the uber press is complaining about long wait times at airports and restaurants, something like 200,000 people are getting sick every day and well more than a thousand are dropping dead of this stupid ailment.

So forgive me for repeating myself, but WHY did the administration not prepare properly for the holidays (i.e. ramp up tests, masks, etc)? Why aren’t they using the Defense Production Act to mass produce the new oral COVID therapies, test kits, masks, and hell … vaccines? Why aren’t they supporting Dr. Peter Hotez’s efforts to distribute the COVID vaccine his team developed – a vaccine with no patent and a simple formula easily replicated in developing countries?

I think the answer to the first question is simple. They didn’t think COVID would continue to be a problem by the end of the year, and didn’t want to seem alarmist. Again, the nineties Democratic party brain kicked in, and they were primarily concerned with messaging and perception.

The self-imposed limits of power

The answers to the second and third questions go deeper, but still reflect the timidity of Democrats even when they hit a trifecta of governmental power at the federal level. Last week I talked about the administration’s take on sending masks to every American. It would be relatively simple for them to beat the low bar set by Trump last year. Arguably they have done this, but only just.

The fact is, people are still marching into eternity at a sickening rate. There should be no holds barred when it comes to fighting this scourge. And yet, the administration still observes the constraints set by neoliberal economic policy. Yes, they want to appear bold to the activist base. But whenever the opportunity arises to move an issue forward, they do nothing and focus the blame on some immutable force: the parliamentarian, the filibuster, immigration judges, etc.

Like the corporate media, they seem to live in another world. It’s a world where you can ignore every country in sub-Saharan Africa without risking new strains of COVID. It’s a world in which action in mid-January is an appropriate response to an emergency in mid-December – a world of frequent flights and limo rides.

What we can do

You can call or write the White House and tell them what you think they should do. I know you’re one person, but it doesn’t hurt to add your voice to the thousands of others calling in.

Another thing you can do is contact your Congressional Representatives. I say you can do that, though for me it’s kind of a waste of time – my Rep is a Trump-loving twitter troll named Claudia Tenney, and there’s zero point in contacting her unless you want a Tenney/Trump bumper sticker. I’m thinking about contacting members in neighboring districts.

There are myriad other ways to make your voice heard. I really think we need to push back hard against these policy failures. Don’t let the lobbyists be the only ones they hear from.

luv u,

*Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.*

News of the new Omicron COVID variant is settling in, and people are understandably wary and disgusted. Every time it seems like this thing is ending, this thing is not ending, and there are few things more frustrating than that. Life prior to the pandemic seems like this strange, distant, exotic state of being that can never be entirely restored.

Of course, we really don’t know very much about Omicron. The networks are doing their best to pre-emptively scare the living shit out of everyone. I try to tune out all but the most authoritative voices; nevertheless, it eventually catches up with all of us in one way or another.

The great, untried solution

Now, we know how to get out of this. In case you haven’t heard, this is what needs to happen: rich people need to defeat their hunger for more riches. And if that doesn’t happen, we need to do the work for them. In other words, we need to separate Big Pharma from their excess profits and aggressively distribute their intellectual property (i.e. the formulae for the COVID vaccines) to the developing world.

We need to vaccinate the entire world. The only way we can do that is by compelling these manufacturers to drop their patent rights. With Moderna, it would be easy – the United States participated in their vaccine development. They can compel the others to follow suit. In the medium term, that will help poorer countries protect their citizens. But in the short term, we need to push global vaccine distribution with all of the resources we can bring to bear.

No place like home

What’s just as important as getting people vaccinated in the developing world? Getting people vaccinated in the industrialized world, and that includes right here at home. We’re still seeing almost 1,900 COVID deaths every single day, with new cases in excess of 110,000 daily. That far outstrips countries we have travel bans against, like South Africa, which is seeing about 8,000 new cases and 80 deaths a day – too many, yes, but not a fly on us.

I know – I’ve been making this case for a long time. But it’s as true now as it was in July, and in some ways it’s even MORE true now. For one thing, we know a lot more about how safe and effective the vaccines are, despite the bullshit being thrown up by the right and some on the loony left. For another, we are seeing in real time what happens when you let a virus run rampant. It’s like a massive scientific experiment – let’s see how many freakish mutations we can spawn. And at 110,000 cases a day, the hottest corner of the test mass is right here in the U.S. of A.

Keep your head down, and your chin up

When I started getting take out again regularly, back in the summer, people were just starting to gather in restaurants and pubs the way they used to, pre-COVID. No masks, lots of drinks, and plenty of yakking at one another. Now we’re seeing COVID cases overrun our local emergency rooms. County officials are telling us not to go to the ER unless we’re having a heart attack, stroke, etc.

This is nuts. And it’s going to keep happening until we take action. We need to keep pushing our electeds to take this pandemic seriously, and push global distribution of vaccines and treatments. And we need to do it now.

luv u,

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Tag Archives: vaccines

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