PRESS - ‘If the rich hoard the vaccine, the pandemic will drag on’

Click here to read the full article on America Magazine's website.
 

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‘If the rich hoard the vaccine, the pandemic will drag on’: Catholic health advocates urge the U.S. to take the lead on global distribution

Two problems have stymied efforts to get more people vaccinated against Covid-19 worldwide: Vaccine skepticism and vaccine scarcity. A coalition of 42 Catholic domestic and international health care providers and development and relief agencies was launched this month to address both of those challenges. The coalition will confront misinformation here in the United States and supply worries overseas, where poor nations so far have only been allocated a fraction of the doses they need to turn back the pandemic.

Sean Callahan, the president and C.E.O. of Catholic Relief Services, a coalition member, made a strong pitch for the practical and moral call to rapidly and equitably share vaccine reserves in an interview with America. “We will never get [the pandemic] under control here in the United States until we get it under control everywhere,” he said, noting persistent spikes in Covid-19 cases around the United States and around the world because of the emergence of Covid variants.

The worst-case scenario, he said, would be for a variant to surface that is unaffected by the current roster of vaccines. The faster Covid-19 can be tamped down everywhere, he said, the better off everyone will be, in poor and wealthy nations alike.

 

Click here to read the full article on America Magazine's website.