From the Citizens Trade Campaign (http://www.citizenstrade.org):
The Omicron variant is proving what public health experts have been warning since the start of the COVID pandemic: that no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Americans and the world will remain vulnerable to wave after wave of COVID variants that prolong the pandemic for everyone unless and until vaccines, test kits and medicines are readily available across the globe.
TAKE ACTION: Urge your U.S. Representative to cosponsor the “End the Pandemic Now” plan (H. Con. Res. 60) at https://citizenstrade.salsalabs.org/endthepandemicnow/index.html, which lays out a clear roadmap for increasing global vaccine and treatment production.
Policymakers know that if we want to prevent the coronavirus from mutating further and requiring round after round of boosters — and potentially even entirely new vaccine formulas — we need to help vaccinate the globe. Yet, two years into the pandemic, less than 8% of the populations of low-income countries have had access to even a single COVID shot.
There long seems to have been some unspoken believe that, eventually, Americans, Europeans and other affluent-nation citizens will have had their COVID vaccines, and that leftover doses will then “trickle down” to developing countries. Omicron should be showing us the folly of that thinking.
There is now an increased demand for booster shots, and even talk about new vaccine formulas being developed to more effectively defend against the Omicron variant. As such, while some people get a third and potentially even forth shot, billions of people around the world are still waiting for their first shot. They’re still at the end of the line. And that line is not going to go away until production is increased.
The only way to end the COVID crisis is to ensure that there are enough vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics available for everyone who needs them.
Together, we can save lives and end this pandemic. Please contact your Member of Congress now.
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