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More … than 615,000 Americans died during this life-changing pandemic. In recent weeks, the delta variant of the coronavirus has caused a Dramatic increase in infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Even with the widespread availability of vaccines, we have not been smart enough, determined enough or strong enough to finally overcome this public emergency. If we could successfully send a man to the moon 50 years ago, we can certainly find a way to eradicate this virus. But we didn’t.
the the first vaccine was deployed last December. Two more were available soon after. Yet only 50% of all Americans are fully immunized today. This fact is both alarming and tragic. This is alarming because Americans do not seem to understand the importance of vaccination in beating the coronavirus. This is tragic because this painful and painful pandemic will not be eradicated anytime soon at this rate.
Vaccines are the safest and most effective way to end the pandemic. This is not an opinion. It is a scientific, medical fact, a certainty. But it will be necessary to achieve collective immunity to achieve this objective. And, according to public health experts, over 90% of Americans will need to be fully vaccinated before COVID-19 in all of its variant forms is effectively suppressed.
Two major roadblocks have hampered our ability to win this pandemic war.
First, the pandemic and vaccines have been politicized from the start. The responses to both have been a litmus test for devotion to a particular political party. Republicans, as a group, downplayed the significance of the pandemic, underestimated the need for mitigation, and were reluctant to get vaccinated. Democrats, on the other hand, recognized the severity of the pandemic, used mitigation measures, and were rushed into vaccinations. The best predictor of a person’s vaccination is their political affiliation. This is the essence of politicization.
Second, disinformation about the pandemic and vaccines has been counterproductive to our national response. Millions of Americans still think the pandemic is exaggerated. Millions of anti-vaccines believe our vaccines are untested, unsafe or ineffective. Disinformation has been widely promulgated by elected Republican officials and by the right-wing media. Social media platforms, like Facebook, have also allowed dangerous disinformation to spread. Science and medicine were put aside. Public health experts have been ignored.
This combination of politicization and disinformation has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, an economy destroyed, generalized anxiety and depression and a lack of precise understanding of the usefulness of vaccines. We now have an undefeated pandemic and a variant of the coronavirus that is spreading like wildfire among the unvaccinated. If we don’t achieve herd immunity soon, vaccine-resistant variants are too likely to emerge and kill millions more. the lambda variant, for example, may be resistant to the vaccine.
We call for a coordinated effort by political and medical leaders to combat these two problematic influences in our country. All political leaders need to make it clear in their words and deeds that vaccinations are not a partisan issue. Republican elected officials must encourage their supporters to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Medical experts must continue to educate the public about the safety and effectiveness of our vaccines. Herd immunity is a concept that many Americans misunderstand – but it’s absolutely crucial, as we need to achieve that nationwide level of immunization that will finally end this pandemic. It is an achievable goal. But to achieve this goal in the shortest possible time, vaccination warrants in our states, cities, schools, colleges, and businesses are almost certainly needed.
Our country has an illustrious history of vaccines, and it should not be forgotten. Over the decades, we have successfully eradicated smallpox, diphtheria, polio, measles and mumps. They were indeed wiped out. We have only been able to get rid of these diseases because the American people have accepted vaccines and been immunized in sufficient numbers to achieve herd immunity. Vaccines were not an instrument of partisan politics and were not surrounded by so much disruptive information.
What we do know is that 615,000 deaths and count are unacceptable in a powerful and prosperous country. It is inconceivable that we will continue to see this kind of death and destruction. It is absolutely within our grasp to turn the tide and defeat this pandemic. But for that to happen, we must eliminate partisan politics and deliberate disinformation from our national strategy. Our attitudes and behaviors must be guided by science and medicine. If that seems like a tall order at the moment, we have to recognize that nothing less than it will work.
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