The US must do everything it can to help other countries get vaccinated for COVID-19: conservative

Although the United States remains the COVID-19 hotspot of the world, many other countries also continue to be imperiled by pandemic. And Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, is arguing that it is in the best interests of the U.S. to do everything it can to help other countries get vaccinated for COVID-19.

In an article published on April 6 by the conservative anti-Trump website The Bulwark, Rohac explains, "With just 673 million doses administered globally so far, the prospect of normalcy remains out of reach for the vast majority of humankind —and not just its poorest segments. The European Union is still struggling with vaccination, due to a combination of mishaps and bad management. In Australia, population 25 million, only 850,000 doses vaccine doses have been administered."

The type of arguments that Rohac makes in his article stand in sharp contrast to the "American first" isolationism of Trumpism. As Rohac sees it, COVID-10 infections in other countries aren't just a problem for those countries — they are a problem for the U.S. as well.

"At the current pace," Rohac warns, "it may take years to reach global herd immunity. In the meantime, the world will become poorer, sicker, less economically interconnected, and more conflict-prone than it would otherwise be. America should not allow that to happen."

According to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 2.8 million people as of April 6. The U.S., with over 555,000 fatalities, is #1 in COVID-19-related deaths, with Brazil at #2, Mexico at #3, India at #4 and the U.K. at #5.

But the good news for the U.S. is that vaccination rates have increased substantially in 2021. In the U.S., roughly one-third of the population has been at least partially vaccinated for COVID-19 — and President Joe Biden has stressed that vaccination should be available to all U.S. residents this spring. And the U.S., according to Rohac, will be protecting its own safety if it helps residents of other countries get vaccinated as well.

Rohac argues, "The international efforts to buy and distribute the vaccine to poorer countries are inadequate…. We should do more. Much more. The United States ought to commit to vaccinating the whole world this year — not, or not just, as an act of charity, but as an act of self-interest and leadership."