According to Fox News just now, U.S. President-elect Biden announced on Monday local time that he intends to nominate California Attorney General Javier Becera as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In addition, Biden nominated Dr. Fauci as his chief medical adviser on the coronavirus. Fauci is currently the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Biden said Fauci will continue to hold the position.
The conspiracy theories of American anti-vaccines threaten global immunization
On December 6, the Economic News Network in Buenos Aires, Argentina, published an article entitled “The conspiracy theory of anti-vaccinators in the United States threatens global immunization” by reporter Gustavo Sierra.
The article said that anti-vaccines in the United States directly affect the global control of the COVID-19 epidemic. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Global control of the COVID-19 pandemic depends largely on anti-vaccines in the United States. If they refuse immunity, it will be difficult for the rest of the world to eradicate COVID-19. This is a political issue. Those who refuse to get the vaccine are overwhelmingly Trump supporters, while those who support the vaccine are mostly Democrats who support Biden. This problem involves health policy and political strategy and is not easy to solve. However, the vaccine problem is not only about the health of 300 million Americans, but also the health of the rest of the world.
If these 50 million people are not vaccinated, the virus will still spread on a large scale, and the rest of us will have no effect if they are vaccinated.
The pandemic and the White House-fueled denial movement have divided the United States in half. Half believe in the preventive role of masks and Dr. Fauci (infectious disease expert), half believe in personal freedom and Trump’s remarks.
All polls show that Democrats are more willing to get a coronavirus vaccine than Republicans. Nevertheless, the members of the anti-vaccine movement have their own reasons.
The so-called “liberalists” responsible for the outbreak of measles, mumps and water epidemics for the past 20 years say their ideas have nothing to do with the party. They are very worried about the safety of the vaccine, and also about the restriction of freedom.
Some Christians reject vaccines because they believe that the pandemic can only end in time, and there is nothing human power can do about it.
There are many people who just want to wait and let others do mice first, just in case. All these people constitute a wave of doubt and resistance to vaccines.
The anti-vaccine campaign has gained 8 million supporters since the beginning of this year, according to the Center for Combating Digital Hate. The anti-vaccine users on social networks reached 58 million, and their accounts have 31 million enthusiastic followers on Facebook and 17 million followers on YouTube.
The most active projects are the World Mercury Program and Stop Mandatory Vaccination, which are estimated to raise more than $1 billion. Their followers believe that the negative impact of vaccines far outweighs the advantages, and they worry that the genetic modification of some vaccines will cause irreversible harm to human beings. “They’re turning us into a hybrid of superhumans,” an anti-vaccine person wrote on Facebook.
Opinion polls show that confidence in vaccines was low at the beginning of the pandemic, which was further reduced as the outbreak continued in the United States in the summer and the campaign began.
About two-thirds of Americans expressed their willingness to get a vaccine in June, and by September, when Trump increased pressure on the health care system to release good news about the vaccine before the election day, the figure dropped to 50%, Gallup Consulting said. Another survey shows that only 38 percent of respondents are willing to get the vaccine in the first three months after it is available.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a well-known infectious disease expert, estimates that at least three-quarters of people need to be vaccinated to obtain enough immunity to control the pandemic. He said, “It’s better to be 85%. If half of the people are not vaccinated, we will still face huge public health challenges.”
In order for the number of people to reach 75% vaccination in the United States, 50 million people must be persuaded to change their minds and agree to vaccination.
Trump’s consistent attitude towards the issue and his claim that Joe Biden won the election through fraud made the problem more difficult to solve. Most of his followers confuse vaccines with elections, and argues “if they cheat us with their votes, they will also deceive us with vaccines.”
Infectious disease experts believe that the control of the epidemic depends largely on the White House’s so-called “Operation Warp” to support the safe distribution of vaccines and the retrust of science.
“The government has not made plans to deploy hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines in a short period of time,” expert Tara Law wrote in Time magazine. “The plan should also include managing public fears and expectations.”
