Quote of the Day

The announced “end” of the public-health emergency doesn’t mean the COVID-19 pandemic is really over. Thousands of people are still dying from it, while 20% of those who had it are experiencing some form of long COVID and many elderly and immunocompromised Americans continue to feel unsafe. Nor, by the way, does that announcement diminish a longer-term, slow-burning public health crisis in this country.

Early in the pandemic, Reverend William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, warned that the virus was exploiting deeply entrenched fissures in our society. Before the pandemic, there had already been all too many preconditions for a future health calamity: in 2020, for instance, there were 140 million people too poor to afford a $400 emergency, nearly 10 million people homeless or on the brink of homelessness, and 87 million underinsured or uninsured.

Last year, the Poor People’s Campaign commissioned a study on the connections between COVID-19, poverty, and race. Sadly, researchers found the fact that all too many Americans refused to be vaccinated did not alone explain why this country had the highest pandemic death toll in the world. The lack of affordable and accessible health care contributed significantly to the mortality rate. The study concluded that, despite early claims that COVID-19 could be a “great equalizer,” it’s distinctly proven to be a “poor people’s pandemic” with two to five times as many inhabitants of poor counties dying of it in 2020 and 2021 as in wealthy ones.

– Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
Excerpted from “The End of COVID-Era Benefits
Reveals a Society Still Profoundly Sick”
Common Dreams
May 3, 2023

Related Off-site Updates:
The U.S. COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Is Ending. What Does That Mean? – Erin Garcia de Jesús, McKenzie Prillaman and Helen Thompson (Science News, May 4, 2023).
No More Free COVID Tests as Nationwide Public Health Emergency Ends May 11 – NBC News (May 4, 2023).
WHO Experts to Weigh Whether World Ready to End COVID Emergency – Jennifer Rigby and Emma Farge (Reuters.com, May 4, 2023).

UPDATE: WHO Declares COVID-19 Global Health Emergency Officially Over – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, May 5, 2023).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The State of the COVID Pandemic: “We’re Collectively Walking An Immunity Tightrope”
• Vaccines and GMOs: Two Very Different Debates
• On the Second Anniversary of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Words of Gratitude and Hope
• Difficult Choices
• A COVID Start to 2022
• Out and About – Autumn 2021
• Renae Gage: Quote of the Day – November 28, 2021
• COVID Observations From a General Surgeon
• Richard LaFortune: Quote of the Day – August 20, 2021
• Something to Lament
• A Pandemic Year
• Out and About – Spring 2020
• Memes of the Times
• The Lancet Weighs-in on the Trump Administration’s “Incoherent” Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic
• Examining the Link Between Destruction of Biodiversity and Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Sonya Renee Taylor: Quote of the Day – April 18, 2020
• Marianne Williamson: In the Midst of This “Heartbreaking” Pandemic, It’s Okay to Be Heartbroken
• Hope and Beauty in the Midst of the Global Coronavirus Pandemic
• A Prayer in Times of a Pandemic

Image: Nathan Bajar.