Open thread Dec. 14, 2021

A never ending battle? A rocky journey as US enters third year fighting COVID.

Many remain unvaccinated, rapid tests are hard to find, and a new report says the country is unprepared for future emergencies. 

Two years ago, when a mysterious respiratory illness appeared in China, the danger to American shores seemed remote. Much of the world was preoccupied with holiday plans and resolutions of good intentions for 2020.

Now, as COVID-19 enters its third year of upending life around the globe, the United States is still not applying hard-earned lessons from the pandemic as it continues to fight what seems like a never-ending battle.

Amid an onslaught of misinformation and political sparring over vaccines, roughly40 percentof the population remains without even a single shot, leaving millions vulnerable to serious illness and death. …

Access to rapid COVID tests is scarce in many places. Vaccine mandates are contentious and all three of President Biden’s attempts— targeting federal contractors, health care workers, and employers with more than 100 workers — remain mired in legal challenges. Meanwhile, a centralized system for verifying vaccinations is elusive and many are relying on dog-eared paper vaccination cards.

But the country has made significant strides on other fronts: It can morequickly detectand monitor dangerous shifts in COVID and future viral invaders; and it haspledged roughly $1 billionto shore up a patchwork public health system, which was vital in educating those infected and tracing their contacts.

Anew report, the Global Health Security Index, concludes that while the United States and many countries were able to rapidly develop capacities to address COVID-19, all nations remain dangerously unprepared for future epidemic and pandemic threats.

“We are really worried about political leaders deciding whether they want to maintain these [advances], because without that, these things could easily evaporate,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. …

Over the past two years, the ability of government leaders in the United States to “react in a coordinated, functional, non-corrupt, and humane manner” to a major health crisis declined, the Global Health Security Index report found, ranking the country 69th among 194 other nations. 

The report’s authors considered several factors, including the public’s perception of corruption in the government, as well as vested interests and cronyism, and the accountability of public officials.

“If you have low public confidence in government, the best plan in the world probably won’t overcome that,” Nuzzo said.

In access to health care, the United States is ranked 183rd in the world, nearly dead last in the index. That measure takes into account the United States’ balkanized system of health coverage that leaves many citizens unable to afford to see a doctor for preventive care or when they’re ill.

“The inability to guarantee free access to health care has been crippling in our [COVID] response,” Nuzzo said.

That system also undermines the United States’ ability to track COVID trends across the country. That’s why, for information on such crucial questions as the effectiveness of vaccines and boosters, the United States has had to rely on Israel and the United Kingdom, countries with much more robust health care systems that can swiftly mine data and trends, Nuzzo said.

And yet COVID keeps crashing down on the United States in waves. Every time that it appears to be waning, a new, more transmissible variant roars to life. So that now, as the Omicron variant bears down, federal health officials are once again having to urge people to get vaccinated and receive a booster shot. …

Global Health Security Index

Republicans Who Assailed Biden’s Stimulus Bill Are Embracing the Money

GOP governors who criticized the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill as wasteful are championing state projects funded by the money.

… Republican leaders across the country have been engaged in a similarly awkward dance over the past few months as they accept — and often champion — money from the $350 billion bucket of state and local aid included in the stimulus bill, which passed Congress without a single Republican vote. In some states, like Ohio and Arizona, Republican governors are spending the funds while attempting to undercut the law that allowed the money to flow. Other governors are faulting Congress for not giving their state enough money.

And, like their counterparts in Congress, many Republicans have blasted Mr. Biden’s stimulus bill for fueling inflation, even as they take the funds, and criticized Democrats for pushing for additional government spending plans. …

However, in ‘1984’, Europe and much of Asia had become a single entity, Eurasia. How might that have happened?