EDITORIAL: The COVID vaccine disparity is showing!

Up to this time, the UK has reopened their economy. People are now going to pubs and indoor restaurants. The US is slowly vaccinating millions of people and some states have relaxed their restrictions to a large extent. But in countries around the region are experiencing a massive third wave where the deaths are piling up and people are being infected with the COVID-19 virus at a rapid clip.

The same can be said in India and some parts of East Asia, where the disease is ravaging countries in this third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The only difference is is that some countries are white and others are colourful.

Now I see more clearly why Caribbean leaders were sounding the alarm early on the disparity of access to the COVID vaccines, because a time would come like this where we would see who would be suffering the most and the longest- and it is people of colour.

I’m no racist, each man has their own thing about them that makes them special under our God. However, we have to call it like it is. People of colour are being left out of the science that helps to stop the spread of the COVID-19 disease and especially being left out of the premium vaccines to help inoculate their people against the disease.

There are convenient excuses as to why developing countries are suffering, even if they have some form of vaccine. For example a large part of India is rural and people and the population is extremely large, so more people to come into contact with one another- I can understand that. But so too is America a very large country with a diverse population and they are climbing out of the pandemic, slowly and methodically.

We can also say for the Caribbean we love to party and we love to congregate and share close vibes with one another. Okay, but the UK isn’t a cold society and neither is the US, they have sizeable immigrant populations that have a cultural norms that causes them to be cozy with one another at times.

I see these excuses as lame as the excuses to American police officers executing Black men in the street- there always seems to be some hazy, confusing background story. You know? He didn’t cuff up, or he was reaching for a gun- which ended up to be a cellular phone. Or, I thought it was my house so I shot what I thought was an intruder….blah, blah, blah. A black man is dead in as much as the pandemic is raging in countries of colour. No hazy excuses can take away that glaring reality.

Share the science and the premium vaccines with us please!

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