The Great Covid Disconnect

In New York they are shooting off fireworks to celebrate reopening. But in other parts of the world the coronavirus is continuing to spread, with lethal results. Public health workers are angry and frustrated. A senior official of the World Health Organization, Maria Van Kerkhove, says the world needs to pull together to use all available tools to curb the virus. “Right now the narrative is vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,” she said, “and while vaccines, vaccinations are an incredibly powerful tool, we've completely forgotten about everything else that works. And I feel that frustration.” In this episode, Public health experts in Botswana and Chile describe the continuing rampage of Covid-19 in their countries and Dr. David Nabarro, special Covid-19 Envoy of the WHO, criticizes leaders of the world’s most developed countries, the G7, for offering vaccines but not much else to the rest of the world at their just concluded summit. “It was a pretty bad outcome,” Dr.Nabarro said. “It was a lot of banging chests -- “we’re good” -- but not enough responsibility.” Co-host Edie Lush noted that a very similar criticism of the G7 could be made around their tepid response to climate change. Co-host Claudia Romo Edelman says she understands the desire to get back to living, but that this must happen in a globally conscious way.Fact and Actions in this episode are presented by Regina Larko, founder and co-hot of the podcast, Hashtag Impact.