The US has now donated over 400 million vaccine doses to 112 countries. While this total falls short of the 1.2 billion doses the US has promised to donate, it is said to be more than five times larger than that of any other country. Vaccine inequity remains an issue even though 10 billion doses of vaccine have been administered globally. The US has administered five times as many extra doses (86 million) as the total number of doses given in all of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. In the UK, over 300 leading scientists have criticized the prime minister for not doing enough to boost vaccination levels worldwide. So many people not being vaccinated increases the opportunities for new variants to arise.
Dr. Fauci says that scientists are working on a "pan-coronavirus" vaccine to induce "broad and durable protection against coronaviruses that are known, and some that are even at this point, unknown." Don't hold your breath, though. Such a vaccine is still years away.
The head of Paris hospitals has asked whether people who refuse to be vaccinated should continue to have their covid treatments covered by public health insurance. That mere suggestion is not going over at all well. There are currently about 30,000 covid patients in French hospitals. Seventy percent of the patients in Paris and Bordeaux ICUs are unvaccinated. In Marseille and Nice, over 90 percent of ICU patients are unvaccinated. The cost to French taxpayers of one day in an ICU is $5,615.17 while the cost of one dose of vaccine is $22.32. As several people I know would say, "Do the math." An ambulance driver calls for the national health service to continue to cover all covid patients, noting, "If we enter the spiral of patient selection, are we to make smokers pay for the lung cancer treatment or punish the obese because they eat too much?"
As a result of the pandemic, American adults and adolescents have missed more than 37 million routine vaccinations for ailments such as flu, hepatitis, and chickenpox. There are state legislators of a political party I will not name who have actually suggested doing away with all the vaccinations required for school attendance. If passing on the covid vaccine is okay, why not pass on all the other vaccines?
Sarah Palin has been going out for dinner despite having tested positive for covid. I can't help but imagine that her words of a month ago might prove to be prophetic. "It'll be over my dead body that I'll have to get a shot."
Finally, I found a fun word in today's stroll through the news. It's the opposite of "immunocompromised," that is, "immunocompetent." It sort of rolls off the tongue with a bounce on the final "t." Being competent at being immune. Is that something we need to learn to be? An interesting word to think about while watching the snow fall.
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