Dear COVID anti-vaxxer:
Would you mind if we sent your shot to developing countries?
As of today, I am two weeks out from my second Pfizer shot. This means I am, for all intents and purposes, fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
So far, half the country has had at least one shot. Roughly a third of the country is fully vaccinated.
Yet one in five Americans say they do not intend to be vaccinated. The list of anti-vaxxers includes white, rural Southerners, Republican men, and pregnant women, though the CDC says there’s no need for the latter group to avoid the vaccine. In news-you-could-predict, the least-vaccinated counties tend to be home to Trump voters. The FDA halting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine out of concern of reactions of a few people only added to some people’s hesitancy. The stay certainly hasn’t helped the global rollout for the billion or so people awaiting the one-and-done shot in countries other than the U.S.A.
In March, wealthier countries were vaccinating a person a second, while some poorer countries had yet to administer a single shot. At the time, “The Economist” speculated that 85 countries wouldn’t have widespread access to the vaccine until 2023.
So if there are Americans who chose to avoid vaccines, might we consider sending their shots to Chad, or Paraguay, or Papua New Guinea? People there are anxiously waiting, and, I mean, if we’re not using them…
The unvaccinated, whether symptomatic or not, will become incubators for the virus, allowing it yet another opportunity to mutate. Best case scenario, we have an annual covid shot, maybe rolled in with the flu shot. Worst case, the hospitals and ICUs fill up again, stretching the healthcare infrastructure to its breaking point.
As of a couple of days ago, only 2.6% of the world has been fully vaccinated, and 6.4% have had at least one dose. If we've learned anything, we should certainly know by now that virulent viruses, anywhere in the world, affect all of us. If a mutant resistant strain develops elsewhere, because the population is unable to contain it, we'll all be back to square one. (though hopefully a little smarter). I hope the scientists are prepared. To actively turn down a vaccine, if it is not due to medical reasons, seems ignorant and a little selfish to me. We are all relying on a group effort on this to eradicate this viral bastard.