However much President Biden might have called for independence day celebrations on July Fourth, the nationwide romantic euphoria was this year overshadowed by concerns and even fears of resurgenceof Covid.
The Fourth of July has scarcely been able to deflect the focus; it might have been a celebration of deception if it did. Health officials have raised concerns over disparities in vaccinations as 1,000 US counties have rates below 30 per cent, indeed a calibration that is inherently dangerous.
It was irrelevant, therefore, for people to wear regalia on July 4 to celebrate Independence Day in New York.
The President of America has fallen short of his goal of getting 70 per cent of the people vaccinated against Covid-19 by the country’s independence day holiday last Sunday.
The nation’s timeframe on addressing a potentially mortal issue has gone haywire. Hence arguably the high-minded lament from the White House that while “America is coming back together, Covid is not yet over”… in one of the world’s most acutely affected nations. Sixty-seven per cent of adults in the United States of America have received at least one jab, according to data from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while 58.1 per cent of those over 18 are considered fully vaccinated.
It might be a sobering thought that the younger generation is better looked after. “If you’ve had the vaccine, you’re doing great,” said Dr Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, an infectious disease physician at the John Cochran VA Medical Center and St Louis Board of Health.
“If you haven’t had the vaccine, you should be alarmed and that’s just the bottom line, there’s no easy way to cut it,” she said. “But that doesn’t take away from the fact that this country is in a significantly better place.”
For all that, US health officials are raising concerns about the gap between heavily vaccinated communities and lesser-vaccinated ones, with top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci saying on Sunday that most recent coronavirus hospitalisations and deaths are among unvaccinated people.
“The overwhelming proportion of people who get into trouble are the unvaccinated, which is the reason why we say this is really entirely avoidable and preventable.”
About 1,000 counties have a vaccination rate below 30 per cent and the federal government has warned that these could become the next hot spots as virus restrictions ease. The Biden administration is sending “surge” teams to Colorado and Missouri.
Additional squads of infectious disease experts, public health professionals and doctors and nurses are getting ready to assist in locations with a combination of low vaccination rates and rising cases. Both have combined to pose a forbidding challenge in the USA today, this year against the backdrop of the Fourth of July celebrations.