Dear friend— this is a pivotal moment.
New variants of COVID-19 that are more easily transmissible and potentially more deadly are spreading across the globe. The pandemic has already cost more than 3 million lives and pushed the world into an economic disaster. Now, these new variants threaten to escalate the situation. With the scientific achievement of safe and effective vaccines, there's a way out of this nightmare. But only if everyone, everywhere has access to the vaccines as soon as possible. Someone is getting vaccinated in the US and other rich countries every single second, but only 10% of people in low- and middle-income countries are set to have access to a vaccine this year at all. Dear friend, this is outrageous. Big Pharma companies are acting like it’s business as usual : guarding their patents and creating scarcity so they can make more money.
It’s unacceptable — we need to tell Big Pharma to share their technology, work with other companies to produce the vaccines, publish their data, and provide assistance so that manufacturers everywhere can help expand the world’s supply of vaccines — immediately.
Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna are having their shareholders meeting this month, so we can make a big difference right now. Dear friend, we must vaccinate as many people as possible. COVID-19 anywhere is COVID-19 everywhere, dear friend. Keeping vaccines only available in wealthy countries means the crisis will only last longer for all of us. A longer pandemic could push an additional half billion people into poverty, undoing decades of progress.
And the longer it takes to get everyone vaccinated, the more likely more mutations of the virus will develop and spread. At any moment, we could face a new mutation that is even more contagious or deadly — and potentially resistant to the existing vaccines.
President Biden has already allocated funding to the COVID-19 Vaccine Accelerator (COVAX) program, but it isn’t enough : the initiative is underfunded, and, at best, only 20% of people in low- and middle- income countries will be vaccinated through these efforts. Even if more money was funneled through COVAX there still remains a huge vaccine shortage because manufacturing can’t keep up.
That’s not good enough, and that’s why we need to increase the pressure on Big Pharma now. These companies have the power to share their technology and intellectual property with more companies and assist manufacturers so that the world's supply of vaccines can be expanded right away.
No one should be denied access to a life-saving vaccine because of where they live or how much money they have. Thank you for standing with us and all those who have been affected by this pandemic.
Gina Cummings
Vice President of Advocacy, Alliances and Policy
Oxfam America.
Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. | 
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