Thread by @amymaxmen

So many stories on reaching vaccine herd immunity! But there's a massive dilemma. Here's a 🧵on what I mean...

About 50 countries have fewer than one nurse per 1000 people. Israel has 6x that rate. UK has 10x. US has 15x. Belgium has 20x. Guess which countries want it all?

Have you seen what 1 nurse/1000 looks like?

Picture people hurt in car accidents who die by the road when wounds could have been stemmed; women dying in childbirth; untreated diabetes; children dying from infected wounds, burns, stomachs. A lack of healthcare is palpable.

What do most countries few nurses have in common?

Many are former colonies, where colonizers subsidized just enough medical care to ensure that people were healthy enough for labor, but they didn't invest in national health systems. Slave traders did less.

These are also post-colonial countries, many forced to abide by the World Bank & IMF austerity measures that restricted public expenditures for nurses, doctors & hospitals, just as newly independent countries were growing.
eg
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

We know healthcare workers have higher rates of Covid around the world, and this means that painfully under-staffed health systems will be eroded further, which equals more deaths from Covid & other causes. Forget your Sustainable Development Goals...😢

It also means that when a new virus, say *SARS-CoV-3,* spills over from nature, and a person dies of an unknown disease, nurses aren't around to diagnose it until the disease has killed an overwhelming number of people & the outbreak can spread internationally.
Attn #BiOsEcuRity

COVAX aims to vaccinate 20% of people in low/middle-income countries, healthcare workers likely first. But rich countries seem to want >70% vaccinated before they donate vaccines & push for changes in patenting & manufacturing to help countries that granted them their wealth.

It’s a moral dilemma indeed, and the variants that undermine our vaccine grabs can feel like karma*

*Just kidding about karma. This is evolution. Soap box over. Refs: data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.M… & kff.org/racial-equity-… & who.int/initiatives/ac…