We can't be healthy if Africa is sick

Is the U.S. the only hope for vaccine distribution to the developing world?

World Health Organization photo

---

Once again, COVID-19 variants are triumphing to the point that American hospitals are turning away other patients.

It won't be the last time the stubborn virulence of the viruses will leave us in the dirt, and it's not just because of our failure to sufficiently vaccinate our goofball population. 

It's because of the oceans.

We seem to still idiotically think the vast Atlantic and Pacific can protect us from everything, from Nazi stormtroopers to dread disease.

Worse, most of us still seem to think that the lives of people on our side of the water are more valuable than those on the other. This indirectly affects our own ability to survive. And it casts doubt on whether we deserve to survive at all.

The coronavirus is relatively unchecked in much of the developing world. That's on us, not because we caused it but because we've as yet done relatively little to fix it. And we could probably get the job done.

But it typically takes us a long time to get going on things like this. When we do.

Americans received well-earned plaudits from our allies for bailing them out in two world wars. Our finest hours. But those same allies also remember that both times, we stayed home for years as many of our fellow humans were fed into meat grinders and ovens. 

In the wake of World War II, we seemed to mature a bit in our attitude toward some foreigners. There was the spectacular Marshall Plan, helping rebuild Europe. Nongovernmental organizations brought a near end to polio worldwide and took a big chunk out of malaria (in programs that took decades).

But there was a lot of bad overseas stuff we effectively ignored, especially in Africa. Ebola, for instance, was never a big problem for us when it was killing thousands over there, but just wait until somebody in Ohio gets it.

Africa is 9% vaccinated against COVID-19. Private and non-governmental organizations are applying themselves to the problem, but they're never going to be able to swing it.

One of the most effective NGOs in the world, Charity: Water, has since 2006 pledged to bring fresh water to the many people who lack it worldwide. In a herculean effort, they've managed to supply more than two million people. 

They've got two billion to go.

Admirable as organizations like Charity: Water and NGO vaccine providers like COVAX, Gavi and UNICEF are, Africa can't wait 15 years to get a fraction of the vaccines it needs. 

The developing world, especially Africa, needs a Marshall Plan for Covid, and it needs it in a more timely manner than the one that took three years after the end of World War II to get started in Europe.

We've got American politicians crying about losing hearts and minds in Africa and Asia to China, which is funding some local infrastructure. There goes American hegemony!

But why cry when we’re in a perfect position to finally convince millions of people we’re the heroic white knights we seem to think we are?

For one of the few times in history, a rich nation can come to the aid of desperate poor nations and save itself by doing so.

But we're not doing it. 

Sometimes I think millions of Americans hope all the poor brown people of the world would just die. 

But they won't all die. A lot of them have, however, and a lot more of them will. Along the way, new viruses will propagate in their failing bodies. That may have happened in South Africa last fall, and in Cameroon in recent days.

And those mutated viruses will prey upon some of our friends and relatives, who may die, too. 

Oceans notwithstanding.

Sign up to get Irv Leavitt’s “Honest Context” free in your inbox by clicking on the subscribe button. Share buttons for social media are also at the bottom of this article.