Global Equity and the Covid Vaccine

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/opinion/letters/covid-vaccine-equity.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Skip Booster Shots. Give Vaccines to Africa,” by Matshidiso Moeti (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 20):

Dr. Moeti is to be congratulated for her excellent essay drawing attention to the growing Covid-19 vaccine inequity. Covid-19, perhaps more than any other event in our history, is demonstrating that we are a genuine global community. Achieving vaccination rates of 80 percent in some high-income countries is outstanding, but no one can relax while vaccination rates of 3.6 percent exist in other areas such as Africa.

Covid-19 has been somewhat of a litmus test for how far we still have to go with equity. For too long equity has been framed as an “us and them” issue, with the very small “us” group controlling the vast majority of resources for the very large “them” group. The most potent lesson from Covid-19 is that it’s all “us.”

Providing booster shots to healthy, low-risk individuals while large numbers of potentially at-risk people have had no vaccination at all is deplorable. No one will be safe until we are all safe. Equity is not just good for everyone; it’s essential to our survival.

Timothy A. CareyKigali, RwandaThe writer is director of the Institute of Global Health Equity Research at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda.

To the Editor:

As a pediatrician with over half a century of practice with Native American children and children in Southeast Asia, I fully agree with the need to vaccinate the world against the coronavirus pandemic. But the question is exactly how to successfully distribute and administer the vaccines given issues with refrigeration, transportation, corruption, theft, instability in many countries, lack of medical personnel, record-keeping, displaced people, religious beliefs, wastage, etc.

The Gates Foundation may be able to gear up and do it, but not the underfunded World Health Organization.

Marvin J. GodnerSanta Fe, N.M.

To the Editor:

Re “Biden Outlines Aggressive Pandemic Plan, but There Are Plenty of Obstacles” (news article, Sept. 23):

The global approach to Covid should be focused on keeping people alive, not eradicating the virus. In doing the former we can do the latter.

What’s needed is the aggressive use of therapeutics, especially monoclonal antibodies. Antibodies are easier to make and transport than vaccines. True, they don’t offer future immunity, but if enough people receive them they can create an inhospitable host population, which would severely curtail the epidemic.

This is not a perfect solution; it still leaves people vulnerable to future infection, but it buys time to produce and distribute more vaccine. A case in point: We never cured AIDS, but we did develop drugs that make it a chronic disease rather than an acute and usually fatal one.

Hypertension, diabetes and AIDS don’t have cures, but they are treatable conditions that we live with. Such a turn in strategy is needed for Covid.

Denis PombriantBoston

To the Editor:

Re “The Taliban nominate a U.N. envoy, complicating a quandary for the General Assembly” (news article, nytimes.com, Sept. 21):

There should be no “quandary” for the U.N. General Assembly. It would simply be unconscionable to let the Taliban’s representative sit at the General Assembly while they continue to repress the rights of girls and women in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have de facto barred girls from obtaining a secondary education. This is in direct violation of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promises that education should be “equally accessible to all.” Sitting a Taliban representative would be seen as giving a green light to a violation of basic human rights.

When I led Let Girls Learn for Michelle Obama, we provided an education to 174,000 girls, added 1,300 female teachers and gave university scholarships in Afghanistan. Afghan women finally had the chance to pursue an education and taste economic freedom. All of this progress is now at risk.

The United States should make emphatically clear that it will not recognize the Taliban on the world stage until real protections for women and girls exist — and that we will use every diplomatic tool at our disposal to ensure basic rights for every Afghan.

Krish O’Mara VignarajahBaltimoreThe writer is the president and chief executive of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

To the Editor:

“Grim New Reality for Afghan Women and Girls” (front page, Sept. 21) reports on the Taliban’s destruction of educational opportunities for Afghanistan’s female citizens.

Even leaving aside the Taliban’s need to institute their antediluvian views at the point of a gun, what hope can the world have for a country whose official policies deny it access to half of the brainpower in the population?

Joseph D. McInerneyLutherville, Md.

To the Editor:

Re “Top U.S. Envoy in Haiti Steps Down in a Protest of Deportation Policies” (news article, Sept. 24):

I support and stand with Daniel Foote, who resigned as special envoy to Haiti. What on earth are these thousands of people supposed to do after being dumped in a country in total turmoil? Is this how we should treat our fellow humans in a time of need? No, and we must address this wholesale abuse of humans now because the future holds even greater migrations.

We are at the beginning of a period of mass migration due to climate change, natural disasters and economic collapse. How we handle today’s and future migrants must be based on compassion in a changing world. We need a government agency that plans, with all nations, for the coming migrations, not one that clings to exclusion and turns a blind eye to the suffering of others.

How can we help those whose only fault was to be born into a place with a desperate future? I am hopeful that we are on the brink of a new kind of worldwide leadership that can build a good future for all of us on this changing planet.

Ingrid FurlongSanta Fe, N.M.

To the Editor:

Re “Pass Manchin’s Voting Bill” (editorial, Sept. 19):

The clock is ticking, deadlines are looming, and the Senate shouldn’t waste any more time — it should pass the Freedom to Vote Act. The next federal elections may be over a year away, but many states are just weeks away from their deadlines to redraw their congressional districts.

Democrats are ready to protect access to the ballot for every American, but Senate Republicans are standing in the way, trying to uphold voter suppression laws around the country. Without protections from federal election standards, unfairly drawn congressional maps could silence Black and brown Americans and deny their equal access to the ballot box for yet another decade.

Senate Republicans’ only hope for continuing to disenfranchise Americans is the filibuster. In addition to voicing support for transformative voting rights legislation, Democrats — and President Biden — must outline a clear plan to overcome the filibuster to move us closer to a democracy that serves and represents the people.

Jana MorganWashingtonThe writer is director of the Declaration for American Democracy, a coalition of more than 240 voting rights organizations.

To the Editor:

Re “Uncomfortable Question in France: Are We Still a Great Power?” (news analysis, Sept. 24):

It’s a strange question. I guess France was a “great power” when it was building a colonial empire. Whether or not it still is, the world is better off now.

Brant ThomasCold Spring, N.Y.