January 27, 2021

U.S. Should Vaccinate Its Own Before Sharing Vaccines

Decisions about vaccine sharing should not be left to public health “experts” with globalist views.

On Thursday, Anthony Fauci informed the World Health Organization that the Biden administration will participate in WHO’s vaccine-sharing project. That reverses President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach. Fauci says the goal is to ensure “equitable access” to vaccines for all countries in the world, rich and poor alike.

Americans scrambling to get vaccinated have a right to know how sharing doses with poor countries will affect their own ability to get vaccinated.

Biden is coming under pressure from the public health community to share the vaccine supply the U.S. has prepurchased before all Americans who want shots receive them.

The vaccine sharing project, with the acronym COVAX, raises money to buy vaccines for poor countries and asks the wealthier countries to donate actual doses. The COVAX dose-sharing principles, released Dec. 18, are causing controversy in France, England, Canada and other countries struggling to get their own populations vaccinated. COVAX wants countries to share their doses as they receive them, rather than waiting to see what’s leftover. So far, Norway has agreed.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says it’s unfair for younger, healthy adults in countries like the U.S. to get injections before the frail and elderly in poor countries. He calls it a “catastrophic moral failure.”

Similarly, Kate Elder of Doctors Without Borders objects “if a healthy 20-year-old in New Jersey is getting vaccinated before a front line health care worker in South Sudan.”

Bruce Aylward, a WHO adviser, claims it’s unacceptable for a country to vaccinate its entire population before offering doses to the highest risk inhabitants of poorer countries.

Duke University public health experts also argue that high-risk groups in poor countries should get the vaccine before the U.S. public. A report from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center complains that wealthy countries are monopolizing the initial supply.

Thursday’s White House statement on vaccine sharing says the U.S. will comply once there is “sufficient” supply here. What does “sufficient” mean? When just those at highest risk are vaccinated, as globalists propose, or when shots have been offered to all Americans? The public needs a clear answer to that question.

There are powerful reasons to oppose COVAX’s vaccine-sharing principles.

First, U.S. taxpayers poured billions into Operation Warp Speed to develop the vaccines with the understanding they’d get a large share of initial production. When Trump refused to join COVAX, The New York Times slammed the decision as “vaccine nationalism,” but Americans desperate to get vaccinated are unlikely to be worried about political correctness.

Second, the U.S. is striving to reach herd immunity by summer, which scientists predict will require about 70% of the population to be vaccinated. Diverting some of the vaccine supply to COVAX would endanger that goal.

On Monday, the International Chamber of Commerce joined the call for equitable distribution of vaccines, arguing that helping poor nations will benefit the economies of wealthy ones. True in the long run, but vaccinating a quarter of the population of every country, as COVAX proposes, would necessitate the US and other developed countries giving up a return to normal this year.

Third, as new virus variants emerge, vaccination becomes even more a race against the clock. Otherwise a variant could appear that is not susceptible to the vaccine. Moderna announced Monday that its vaccine is somewhat less effective against the recently identified South African variant. People may need yearly boosters against emerging strains.

In the last two weeks, both the European Union and the U.S. have been hit with unexpected news about manufacturing setbacks. Monday the European Union actually threatened to ban Astra-Zeneca from exporting any doses until it meets its contractual obligations. The EU is putting its own people first.

That’s a lesson for America. Decisions about vaccine sharing should not be left to public health “experts” whose globalist views are now ascendant in Washington, D.C. Helping the world is important, but America needs to take care of its own first.

COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.