'Forget about the travel bans, let's go vaccinate the African people'

[kpete]

CNN medical analyst Dr. Peter Hotez to G7 leaders on Omicron: ‘Forget about the travel bans, let’s go vaccinate the African people’ • Today News Africa

Link to tweet

?s=20

"I think much more productive than travel bans would be refocusing our energies on trying to vaccinate Southern Africa because that's how these new variants emerge—they emerge out of large unvaccinated populations," he added.

"If the G7 leaders are serious about stopping new variants, forget about the travel bans, let's go vaccinate the African people."

https://www.newsweek.com/forget-travel-bans-fight-omicron-variant-focus-vaccinating-africans-doctor-1653723

[ananda]

1. Yes! These are words we can live by.

IOW, vaccinate everyone.

[48656c6c6f20]

2. I've been wanting to see something similar

Make America bold and wonderful again, vaccinate the world. We can do it.

[Scrivener7]

3. South Africa is turning away vaccine doses because they can't get people to take the vax.

And their vax rate is in the 20-30 percent range.

[Klaralven]

7. South Africa delays COVID vaccine deliveries as inoculations slow

About 35% of South Africans are fully vaccinated, higher than in most other African nations, but half the government's year-end target. It has averaged 106,000 doses a day in the past 15 days in a nation of 60 million people.

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south-africa-delays-covid-vaccine-deliveries-inoculations-slow-2021-11-24/

South Africa is probably ahead of most African countries.

[Scrivener7]

9. And they are turning away offered vaccines because no one is taking them.

[Meowmee]

4. No lets not

Travel bans and vaccinate everyone.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. He's comparing apples and indoor toilets

It's not as if not having travel bans frees up resources to make and distribute more vaccines. If he wants an immediate increase in vaccines in Africa, he should be advocating stopping boosters in developed countries so that they can be sent there now, making sure developing countries have the entire infrastructure to vaccinate as widely as possible, stopping any intellectual property problems that prevent any capable facility in the world producing any vaccine. Not that all those are necessarily a good thing (in the face of this new variant, the boosters are more likely to be needed everywhere), but I think he's not making a useful suggestion with "forget about travel bans". What that would help is the airline and tourism industries, and some individuals.

[Calista241]

6. Vast portions of Africa have a history of rejecting western vaccines and medicine.

Vaccines for malaria, yellow fever, Hep A and B, and others (and now COVID) have had a long road to adoption in Africa.

[Blues Heron]

8. Japan: cool story bro!

They just locked their borders to all incoming travelers. D'oh!