From the Citizens Trade Campaign (http://www.citizenstrade.org):
One year ago today, South Africa and India proposed an emergency waiver of COVID vaccine and treatment monopolies so that life-saving medicines needed to end the pandemic could be produced in as many places as possible as quickly as possible.
Since that time, 3.6 million more people have died from COVID, the deadly Delta variant has surged and the majority of people on Earth still don’t have access to a COVID shot.
TAKE ACTION: Please sign our petition at https://citizenstrade.salsalabs.org/zients/index.html urging White House COVID Response Coordinator Jeff Zients to use the full power of the U.S. government to secure a “TRIPS waiver” and expand global access to vaccine supplies.
In May, President Biden very commendably voiced his support for a TRIPS waiver for COVID vaccines. But the European Union has continued to block the waiver, and unlike many other countries, the United States doesn’t seem to have much to say about it. Nor does our nation have any other plan to expand global vaccine supplies.
To save lives, stop new COVID variants and end the pandemic, Jeff Zients — the person President Biden chose to coordinate our international COVID response — needs to step up to the urgency of the moment.
Inaction on global access to vaccines and treatments is undermining the progress we’ve made on COVID-19, threatening to extend the ongoing health and economic crises here at home — and to cause millions of additional needless deaths around the globe.
We need the administration to stop allowing pharmaceutical monopolies to limit the amount of COVID vaccines and treatments being made worldwide. Please join us in asking White House COVID Response Coordinator Jeff Zients to take urgent action to address the deadly global shortfalls of COVID vaccines and treatments.
There are already over three million signers on the petition. We need your signature as well. Please sign today, as we’ll be delivering it shortly.
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