We are now more than six months into the Biden administration. Six months during which so many of us have been crying out for him to turn his attention to the global Covid-19 pandemic. Six months of absolute dereliction of duty, imperiling millions around the globe and hampering our own efforts to conquer SARS-CoV2 at home.
The figures have been widely circulated. While some states are heading toward 75–80 percent coverage of vaccines and the United States will top 50 percent coverage this summer, in Africa and among many regions of the world fewer than 5 percent of people have received a vaccine against this disease. The sheer denial this displays of human suffering on a monumental scale is a disgrace. Even in the context of self-interest, the inaction by the Biden administration is tremendous folly. Its willingness to let SARS-CoV2 replicate unchallenged around the world has already spawned one variant, Delta, which has taken over among the unvaccinated in this country. Are we really foolish enough to simply wait for the emergence of others—potentially more transmissible, lethal, or resistant to neutralization by our current vaccines? Not to mention the economic and social disruption—or the national security stakes of letting this pandemic rage outside our borders.
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