To say it straight out, it will be sinful if the United States does not figure out a way to get its surplus COVID-19 vaccines to other countries before the medicine expires.
The Associated Press reported Friday that the U.S. has a large and growing number of unused vaccines. The country faces “looming expiration dates and stubbornly lagging demand at a time when the developing world is clamoring for doses to stem a rise in infections.”
The solution to this problem is simple: Round up those unwanted doses and put them on planes headed overseas. The U.S. has extended the expiration date of millions of doses by six weeks, but some officials say it still will be difficult to use them all on time.
President Biden last week committed to buy and donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to help lower-income nations. That’s great, but first things first: Don’t let the existing but unused vaccines go to waste. Pick a few countries and get any doses that are nearing their expiration date on their way.
There are a lot of extra vaccines out there: Tennessee and North Carolina have returned a total of 3.6 million doses to the federal government. Mississippi has been transferring large quantities of its doses to other states or back to the feds. Oklahoma has 700,000 does on hand but is inoculating only 4,500 people per day. At that rate, the state’s current supply will last almost to Thanksgiving.
Recent statistics say 870,000 Americans have been getting a dose of the vaccine each day, a figure that’s down 75% from the peak of inoculation in mid-April, when 3.3 million people received the shot each day.
The biggest problem is that a significant percentage of the population doesn’t want the vaccine and doesn’t feel threatened by the virus. The decline in the rates of death and hospitalizations from COVID-19 in the U.S. has contributed to their lack of urgency.
A number of states have tried creative incentives, such as lotteries and college scholarships, to encourage vaccinations, but these efforts have not stopped the overall decline.
Mississippi’s participation has crashed. The state only administered 18,400 shots last week, has transferred 800,000 of its doses to a federal vaccine pool and split another 65,000 doses between Maine and Rhode Island.
The state ranks dead last in the percentage of residents who have either started or completed the vaccination process. Infections and deaths are way down, which no doubt plays a role in people deciding to skip getting the shot.
But the state health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, groused Friday that if enough people in his state don’t understand the importance of staying alive, people in other states might. That same sentiment dictates that the U.S. start planning overseas shipments immediately, especially to poorer countries or those where infection rates are rising.
If enough Americans don’t want the shots, let’s send them where they’ll do some good.
