The global death toll from Covid-19 has eclipsed 4 million as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant. (AP Photo)
WASHINGTON: The global death toll from Covid-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.
The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the number of people killed in battle in all of the world’s wars since 1982, according to estimates from thePeace Research Institute Oslo.
The toll is three times the number of people killed in traffic accidents around the globe every year. It is about equal to the population of Los Angeles or the nation of Georgia. It is equivalent to more than half of Hong Kong or close to 50% of New York City.
Even then, it is widely believed to be an undercount because of overlooked cases or deliberate concealment.
With the advent of the vaccine, deaths per day have plummeted to around 7,900, after topping out at over 18,000 a day in January.
But in recent weeks, the mutant delta version of the virus first identified in India has set off alarms around the world, spreading rapidly even in vaccination success stories like the US, Britain and Israel.
Britain, in fact, recorded a one-day total this week of more than 30,000 new infections for the first time since January, even as the government prepares to lift all remaining lockdown restrictions in England later this month.
Other countries have reimposed preventive measures, and authorities are rushing to step up the campaign to dispense shots.
At the same time, the disaster has exposed the gap between the haves and the have-nots, with vaccination drives barely getting started in Africa and other desperately poor corners of the world because of extreme shortages of shots.
The US and other wealthy countries have agreed to share at least 1 billion doses with struggling countries.
The US has the world’s highest reported death toll, at over 600,000, or nearly 1 in 7 deaths, followed by Brazil at more than 520,000, though the real numbers are believed to be much higher in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro‘s far-right government has long downplayed the virus.
The variants, uneven access to vaccines and the relaxation of precautions in wealthier countries are “a toxic combination that is very dangerous,” warned Ann Lindstrand, a top immunization official at the World Health Organization.
Instead of treating the crisis as a “me-and-myself-and-my-country” problem, she said, “we need to get serious that this is a worldwide problem that needs worldwide solutions.”
Biden visits Illinois to sell voters on families agenda
US President Joe Biden. (AP photo)…CRYSTAL LAKE: President Joe Biden on Wednesday turned his focus to pitching his proposed investments in families and education, using a visit to a community college in an Illinois swing district to highlight how his spending on so-called human infrastructure would boost the economy.
The president toured McHenry County College, a community college in Crystal Lake with a workforce development program and a child care center. He’s trying to sell voters on his vision to invest in child care, health care, education and other important aspects of everyday life for Americans, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday on Air Force One.
Biden toured a metals lab at the community college, where he emphasized the need to invest in research and development to bolster manufacturing jobs.
“We’ve got the best folks in the world, we’re just not investing the kind of money we should,” he said.
The president also wants to put a renewed focus on the portions of his economic agenda that didn’t make it into the bipartisan infrastructure deal that he backed in June. That package includes hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in roads and bridges, transit systems and broadband, but it constitutes only part of the $4 trillion in spending Biden has proposed in a broader plan to reinvigorate the economy and boost the middle class.
On Wednesday, the Democratic president took steps to highlight the rest, including his plans to invest in child care and workforce development programs and provide two years of free community college, universal prekindergarten and paid family and medical leave. He’ll make the case that investments in such programs are needed to maintain America’s economic growth and competitiveness globally.
He’ll also highlight his proposals to establish a clean energy standard and invest in home care for seniors and affordable housing. And he’ll speak about his plans to make permanent the expansion in the child tax credit and expanded health care premium subsidies from the Covid-19 aid bill.
Democrats plan to include much of this in a bill they hope to pass through a legislative maneuver that would require just a simple majority vote, skirting the 60-vote hurdle in an evenly divided Senate. Biden has said he would prefer that the two bills move through
Congress together, and Democrats are hoping to make progress this month on both.
The Biden administration promoted its agenda on multiple fronts Wednesday.
First lady Jill Biden visited an elementary school in Washington to discuss how the trillions of dollars the president wants Congress to spend on families would pay for more affordable child care, preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds, larger salaries for teachers and modern school buildings with safe drinking water, along with more teachers of color and more nurses and counselors to help students with their emotional and other needs.
“You and your students will continue to be one of our top priorities, not just in one legislative bill, but in everything we do,” she said during a speech to a virtual meeting of the American Federation of Teachers union.”
President Biden was greeted by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot when he landed in Illinois and was met at the community college by Gov. JB Pritzker; Illinois’ two Democratic senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth; and Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood, who represents the district.
Biden won Illinois’ 14th Congressional District by about 2 percentage points in 2020, and Underwood won reelection by less than that. Hers is one of the top-targeted seats in the nation and is emblematic of the kind of district Democrats will need to hold onto in the 2022 midterms if they hope to maintain control of the House.