AMERICA all but declared independence from Covid-19 on Sunday. Two freedoms for the price of one. A clever idea by United States President Joe Biden to use the July 4 Independence Day celebrations to announce America's freedom from Covid-19.
On that Sunday, Biden was hoping for the US to have achieved a 70 per cent vaccination rate, just enough to reach the lower end of herd immunity. As it turned out, only 46 per cent of adults had been given the two doses on July 4.
Hence, Biden's "all but announced" independence from Covid-19, as Bloomberg put it. Biden was triumphant nevertheless: "Two hundred and forty five years ago, we declared our independence from a distant king. Today, we are closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus."
That is as good as declaring independence from the coronavirus. The Biden administration must not lose touch with reality like this.
Here is why. No one is safe until everyone is. Not everyone is safe in America. Nor in the rest of the world.
Take America first. As Biden was delivering his celebratory speech on the South Lawn of the White House, the US recorded 603,000 deaths from the disease.
And the daily deaths are still in the hundreds. Even with vaccinations, infections and deaths continue to be recorded daily. On all these counts, the US is not anywhere "closer to declaring independence from the coronavirus".
If America is faring badly, the rest of the world — at least a good part of it — is doing worse. Up to July 2, 3,594,324 people lost their lives to Covid-19.
On the same day, confirmed cases reached 182,319,261. Vaccination rate isn't something to write home about either. According to The New York Times Covid-19 data tracker, just over 3.16 billion doses have been administered worldwide, equivalent to 41 doses for every 100 people.
The data shock the world in yet another way. There are still some countries yet to report administering a single dose. Tanzania, Burundi, Haiti, Eritrea and North Korea are among those which have not done so.
Accessibility to vaccines is a major issue. The US, the European Union and Britain at one stage or the other of the coronavirus life cycle have had a hand in denying access to vaccines.
This toxicity of some of the wealthiest countries in the world has created a new category of poor: the jabs-have-nots. If NYT is right, 85 per cent of the shots that have gone into the arms worldwide have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries.
Low-income countries had to make do with a mere 0.3 per cent of doses. Biden and leaders around the world who think like him need to be told of an epidemiology truth.
In a world of 200 countries and territories, no one country will be free from Covid-19 until every country is free from the disease. Covid-19 is not Britain.
It is invisible and perhaps invincible. Do not expect it to raise a white flag of defeat. Besides, there is no Covid king or coronavirus queen to seek independence from.
There is a way out though. Make vaccines available to all. Not after all in the West are inoculated.
There must be some simultaneity to it, say epidemiologists. Even then, freedom is not just another word for nothing left to lose.