As the US nears 900,000 Covid deaths, much of the blame has fallen on individuals despite vast income inequality and vaccine accessibility issues
Meanwhile, American leaders are attempting to mimic other countries’ return to normal, despite a markedly different situation with hospitalizations and deaths – which, every day, nearly reach the losses from the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“For a country which has a vaccines-only strategy, we’re not very good at vaccination,” said William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and co-director of the Center on Communicable Disease Dynamics. “There are large parts of the country which are not vaccinated to higher levels … and that’s made worse by the fact that with Omicron, to get really good protection, you also need to be boosted.
“You have people who are more likely to be exposed to the virus, who are less likely to receive vaccines, who are less likely to be able to take steps to protect themselves even with vaccination, because they’re scared of missing a paycheck, they’re scared of taking a day off, their employer won’t let them.”“The absence of paid sick leave is an absolute scandal,” Hanage said. “If you care about working people, give them sick leave.
The US also has higher rates of death from opioids and gun violence, and lower rates of life expectancy, than similar countries. Hospital overcrowding is also higher in the US than other countries, Ranney said. Only 25 US states share reliable data on cases by age, which makes it difficult to know how many children are sick, for instance. “And then that hurts our ability to put data-driven public health measures in place, and then people don’t follow the public health measures, because they don’t trust them. And it becomes this circular problem,” Ranney said.
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