by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
An old friend from high school and I were exchanging emails yesterday, and the current plague of COVID-19 was at the center of much of our discussion. My friend, who like me is in her early seventies, lives in a COVID hotspot and was lamenting the fact that she almost never leaves her house, and when she does she has to be extremely careful. We were talking about our hopes that a vaccine would soon be available and our lives could go back to normal.
But then, as I was typing a response to one of her points, the thought suddenly struck me that the vaccine will likely appear in the spring and whoever was in the White House at that time would have a hand in figuring out how to get it distributed across the country. And what if, God forbid, Trump was still our leader. His administration has never exhibited competence or fairness, so how would that distribution work out.
Would Trump take care of himself, his family and his friends first, and then figure out a way to profit off of the rest of us? Or would he perhaps reroute large portions of the vaccine to other countries as he reportedly did with medical supplies during the early days of the pandemic? Would he institute policies to insure that "red" states got the life-protecting vaccine before "blue" states? Would some facilities - like prisons and immigration centers - be ignored completely? There were so many ways that Trump could use his greed, innate dishonesty, and prejudices to interfere with a national vaccination program.
Clearly a proven vaccine would have a great monetary profitability attached to it, and surely a seasoned grifter like Trump would be focused on skimming some of that profit into his own pockets.
A couple of hours later I heard a news story on the radio which revealed that Bill Gates was also pondering how to distribute the vaccine in an equitable manner - proving, I suppose, that great minds really do think alike!
The crux of Gates' concern was the need to have leaders "make these hard decisions about distributing based on equity, not just on market driven factors." He said that COVID-19 medications and future vaccines should be distributed to people who need them the most, and not to "the highest bidder."
Gates warned:
Development of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 has been a worldwide effort, a major battle, and it will soon have been won. But getting that vaccine out to the people who need it will be an even greater challenge. There are lots of people in this world who feel entitled to move to the head of the line - or to make a profit over the plight of others - and they will all have to be dealt with in one way or another as the world slowly brings the pandemic under control.
In the United States we can move to eliminate some of the problems in advance by making sure the Trump family is not in the White House when the vaccine if finally developed! And anyone who thinks they may possibly be residing in the White House next spring needs to be thinking today about how to vaccinate the entire country in a way that is fair, and swift, and saves as many lives as possible.
A vaccine will only work if it is able to reach the people who need it. Defeating COVID-19 will take more than just vaccinating the privileged in society. It must be made readily available to all.
Citizen Journalist
An old friend from high school and I were exchanging emails yesterday, and the current plague of COVID-19 was at the center of much of our discussion. My friend, who like me is in her early seventies, lives in a COVID hotspot and was lamenting the fact that she almost never leaves her house, and when she does she has to be extremely careful. We were talking about our hopes that a vaccine would soon be available and our lives could go back to normal.
But then, as I was typing a response to one of her points, the thought suddenly struck me that the vaccine will likely appear in the spring and whoever was in the White House at that time would have a hand in figuring out how to get it distributed across the country. And what if, God forbid, Trump was still our leader. His administration has never exhibited competence or fairness, so how would that distribution work out.
Would Trump take care of himself, his family and his friends first, and then figure out a way to profit off of the rest of us? Or would he perhaps reroute large portions of the vaccine to other countries as he reportedly did with medical supplies during the early days of the pandemic? Would he institute policies to insure that "red" states got the life-protecting vaccine before "blue" states? Would some facilities - like prisons and immigration centers - be ignored completely? There were so many ways that Trump could use his greed, innate dishonesty, and prejudices to interfere with a national vaccination program.
Clearly a proven vaccine would have a great monetary profitability attached to it, and surely a seasoned grifter like Trump would be focused on skimming some of that profit into his own pockets.
A couple of hours later I heard a news story on the radio which revealed that Bill Gates was also pondering how to distribute the vaccine in an equitable manner - proving, I suppose, that great minds really do think alike!
The crux of Gates' concern was the need to have leaders "make these hard decisions about distributing based on equity, not just on market driven factors." He said that COVID-19 medications and future vaccines should be distributed to people who need them the most, and not to "the highest bidder."
Gates warned:
"If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidder, instead of to the people and the places where they are most needed, we'll have a longer, more unjust deadlier pandemic."The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that twenty-one candidate vaccines are currently in clinical trials being tested on human volunteers, and that three of those are in the third phase of those trials. With that level of activity already underway, it seems likely that a vaccine will be developed and ready to distribute (or market?) by next spring.
Development of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 has been a worldwide effort, a major battle, and it will soon have been won. But getting that vaccine out to the people who need it will be an even greater challenge. There are lots of people in this world who feel entitled to move to the head of the line - or to make a profit over the plight of others - and they will all have to be dealt with in one way or another as the world slowly brings the pandemic under control.
In the United States we can move to eliminate some of the problems in advance by making sure the Trump family is not in the White House when the vaccine if finally developed! And anyone who thinks they may possibly be residing in the White House next spring needs to be thinking today about how to vaccinate the entire country in a way that is fair, and swift, and saves as many lives as possible.
A vaccine will only work if it is able to reach the people who need it. Defeating COVID-19 will take more than just vaccinating the privileged in society. It must be made readily available to all.
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