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This is the hardest piece I've had to write in a long while, it's about #COVID19 vaccines, how we are entrenching inequality in the vaccine roll-out, both domestically and globally; how we are all complicit. 1/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/vaccine-line-illogical/617881/
It starts with my own dilemma--my 86 year old mother has struggled to get vaccinated. I got invited in January, for reasons obscure to me. Do I go get the jab or do I wait? 2/
But the question is far bigger than my own concerns. In fact, nothing is fair about what is happening right now. 3/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/black-americans-are-getting-covid-vaccines-at-lower-rates-than-white-americans/
If you're white, tech-savvy, abled, middle-class or rich, you're going to get vaccinated first. Just are. Many will be eligible for vaccination under ACIP's categories, but many who are will struggle to get a jab. We need to acknowledge that. 4/
And this puts the lives of those most at risk of death in jeopardy. 5/ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-americans-have-died-from-covid-19-at-disproportionate-rates-but-so-far-theyre-getting-vaccinated-at-lower-rates-11611095131
And if you think it can't get worse it can. If you happen to live in Africa or in other low-or-middle-income regions, you're shit out of luck. 6/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/01/26/guinea-covid-vaccinations-poor-countries/
Why because we are hoarding vaccines. 7/
And fuck @moderna really. It's told its investors that price-is-king and have basically told the world it's pay to play. And they've priced out much of the planet. 8/ https://www.supplychaindigital.com/sustainability/moderna-opts-out-south-africas-vaccine-supply-runs-low
Where have we seen this before? Drug companies tried to profiteer on HIV/AIDS drugs in the 2000s. So greed-is-good isn't a new thing in a pandemic. 9/ https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/20/world/drug-makers-drop-south-africa-suit-over-aids-medicine.html
But people fought back. My friend @ZackieAchmat refused to take his AIDS meds until his government in South Africa started a public program to get them to all. 10/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/10/aids.health
We fought the companies and we won. We fought our governments and we won. Now millions of people are on antiretroviral therapy around the world for HIV/AIDS. 11/ https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/want-build-movement-learn-aids-activists
But did we? HIV/AIDS still ravages the US with 50% of African-American gay men likely to get diagnoses with HIV in their lifetimes. For every success, we still are losing too much ground. 12/ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/magazine/americas-hidden-hiv-epidemic.html
Here is the US we can stop the Kabuki deficit theater of @Sen_JoeManchin @MittRomney @SenatorCollins, and realize if we want to end this pandemic FOR everyone in the US and abroad they are standing in the way and are on the side of the virus. 13/ https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/24/senators-question-biden-covid-plan-461987
Here is in the US, the @theNASEM has a made recommendations about how to address equity. The plan is on the table. We just won't use it. 14/ https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/a-framework-for-equitable-allocation-of-vaccine-for-the-novel-coronavirus
Don't think vulnerability matters in where and whom we vaccinate? We made a map with @laurakurgan to show the trade-offs when you decide to "forget" about vulnerability and race. 15/ http://newpoliticsofcare.net/vaccine.html
And there have been smart ideas about how to address the planned scarcity of the current and most potent vaccines out there from @moderna_tx and @pfizer. Start public production now of the mRNA vaccines. 16/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/opinion/world-covid-vaccines.html
Activists in the global South are speaking up. 17/ https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-12-06-the-great-covid-19-vaccine-heist/
The Archbishop of Cape Town sent this letter to @joebiden this weekend. 18/ https://c19peoplescoalition.org.za/letter-from-archbiship-thabo-makgoba-to-dr-anthony-fauci-and-others/
Everyone should get vaccinated. If you find yourself with the chance to get a jab, do it. These vaccines will save lives and may save yours. Convince everyone you know to sign up. 19/
But I am going to wait. I've got my golden ticket. But it's too hard right now to just take my shot, when so many others, so more deserving, stand to wait months if not years to get vaccinated. 20/
Thanks to the amazing @whitdangerfield, my wonderful editor at @TheAtlantic, for asking me to do this. Act up. Fight back. Fight AIDS. Fight COVID. end/
