By NAN Staff Writer
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. May 20, 2021: Want to take a wild guess of how many vaccines the United States Joe Biden administration, with a Caribbean roots vice-president, has so far given to the Caribbean?
If you guessed ZERO, then you are absolutely correct.
As the region battles with a new wave of rising cases and deaths, the Biden administration and Caribbean American roots Vice President Kamala Harris have ignored multiple governmental requests and again turned its back on its Third Border.
Not a single vaccine from its millions of stockpiled AstraZeneca doses have gone to the Caribbean. In fact, with the exception of 2.5 million doses sent to Mexico for help with the border crisis, the US has given no other country any vaccines.
Of course, President Biden is too busy standing by his man Israel and blocking a UN resolution amid the slaughter of over 200 innocent Palestinians. But that’s another story.
The vaccine story in the Caribbean and the Americas is that the Biden/Harris administration continues to ignore the Caribbean and its desperate need for COVID-19 vaccines as death toll rises in countries like Trinidad and Tobago. Several Caribbean leaders have appealed directly to the administration for help but they have all been ignored. They include St. Kitts & Nevis, Antigua & Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago.
That Caribbean twin-island has seen deaths in just 19 days in May alone soaring to 162. Fourteen deaths alone occurred yesterday following 23 Tuesday.
The country’s total COVID-19 cases now stand at 17,669. Almost 6,700 of those cases are considered active.
But China and Russia are only too happy to step up. According to the Atlantic Council, China has sent over 8.1 million doses of vaccines to the Caribbean, including 8 million to the Dominican Republic and 100,000 yesterday to Trinidad and Tobago.
Russia has sent some 40,000 does to Guyana.
India, which is now battling its own COVID-19 crisis, has been the Caribbean’s biggest vaccine donor. It has donated some 40,000 across the region.
PAHO Director Carissa F. Etienne on Wednesday called for closing the “glaring gaps” in access to COVID-19 vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean by relying less on imports and more on expanded regional production of medical products including vaccines.
Pointing out that only 3% of people in Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Dr. Etienne asserted that the shortage of vaccines is a “symptom of our region’s overdependence on imports for essential medical supplies. Less than 4% of medical products in use during the COVID response have come from the region.”
PAHO has delivered more than 12 million COVAX-procured vaccine doses to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. COVAX is the global alliance for equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Another 770,000 doses are on the way to Central American and Caribbean countries, Dr. Etienne said.
Although COVID-19 infections generally have declined in the past month in the region, new cases and deaths are still on the rise in many countries, Dr. Etienne said. Many Caribbean countries – including the Bahamas, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago – have seen COVID-19 deaths double in the last week. Costa Rica, Panama, and parts of Honduras are reporting dramatic increases in new infections.
Infections are increasing in Bolivia, and French Guiana while the “decreasing trends” in Brazil in previous weeks have paused. “Despite overall reductions in most South American countries, some hotspots in Argentina and Uruguay saw a doubling of cases and deaths in the last week,” she said.
“We urgently need more vaccines for Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that has been put to the test by this pandemic,” she emphasized.
The question is, will the Biden administration answer that call?
