Running out of Greek letters (and patience)
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,
jp
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