Death Where Is Thy Sting?

The US Covid death toll is nudging 900,000, with half the fatalities occurring after the availability of the vaccines. These deaths are equivalent to wiping out a US city such as San Francisco, Washington DC or Boston (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/06/us-covid-death-rate-vaccines). The comparable figure for the UK is currently around 158,000 deaths. There circa 350 deaths each day in the UK but getting residents to take booster vaccine doses appears to be becoming harder (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/05/booster-campaign-stalls-as-partygate-undermines-trust-in-official-advice). It may, at first sight, be surprising that two relatively rich, developed nations have such high Covid19 death rates. The US and the UK both got early access to the vaccines. They also, however, have sections of their populations who neither trust their governments nor their scientists/ medical experts. This distrust has been entrenched in the US for decades. In the UK, however, it has become more recently apparent, following blatant lockdown breaking by senior politicians ('partygate'). Another feature that the countries share is a very unequal distribution of wealth. Fairly obviously, this is more so in the US, where there is no statutory sick pay leave. Sick pay leave exists in the UK but is patchy. Poor people in the UK and US are likely to a) find it difficult to get time off work to be vaccinated/deal with any side-effects; b) work/live in situations, where viral transmission is probable and c) transmit their infection to family and colleagues, as they can't afford to isolate. People in both nations, appear to have become seduced by the message that the omicron variant, although being more transmissible, is less severe. The US is actually unusual in that more (rather than fewer) people are dying, after being infected with the omicron variant. In most other developed countries, with high vaccination rates, omicron is producing fewer fatalities. In the UK, the 'mildness' of omicron is now a cited reason for not getting a booster dose. Sadly, sections of both US and UK communities seem to be 'intensely relaxed' about the deaths of their fellow citizens. Getting such people to care about situations in poor countries with minimal vaccination is going to be an 'uphill' struggle. Covid will remain a pandemic, so long as pockets of infection occur in the world.