Friday, March 29, 2024 -
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Questions

A year-and-a-half into this pandemic, I still have so many questions.

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Why were the new COVID vaccines fully approved in Switzerland months before they were in the US? Switzerland doesn’t have an emergency approval process, so it took longer for the vaccines to be approved and deployed there, but they were fully approved in January.

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How many children globally will suffer because of COVID? Not because they contracted the disease, but from hunger. Lockdowns, disruption to supply chains, unemployment — these have led to growing food insecurity. According to the World Bank, 118 million more people faced hunger in 2020 than in 2019. Close to six million children are on the brink of starvation, according to Save the Children. How do we weigh up protecting children worldwide with our own children?

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Were Australia and New Zealand wise to shut themselves off? Their very low to no COVID rate meant that for most of the pandemic, those down under have been leading relatively normal lives. But they have little natural immunity, so if the countries ever desire to fully reopen, they may be slammed even harder with infections. As we now know, vaccines are no panacea.

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In this new Delta world, do infection rates matter? The original goal was to “flatten the curve,” not to eliminate the virus. So if a majority of the population is vaccinated (in Denver it’s over 70%), does it matter if people get infections as long as hospitalizations stay low and or manageable for health care providers?

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Is it right to mandate vaccines? As a strong believer in personal liberty, I shudder at the thought of mandating individuals to undertake any specific medical action. Yet, I realize that high vaccination rates are the only way out of this.

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Is it right to require proof of vaccination? In this day and age of personal data mining, I am loathe to share personal information with anyone, not knowing where it will end up and how it may be used. However, again, I realize that for venues hosting events with thousands of participants, this may be the only way.

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Each of us as individuals and every government will have to reckon with these quandaries.

Shana Goldberg may be reached at [email protected]

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