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Floor Speech
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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, we are in the middle of a horrible global pandemic. Later this month, we will pass a tragic milestone of a million Americans killed by COVID-19. Already, more than 6 million globally have died.
And I know we are all sick and tired of it, completely tired of it, done with it. I hear all the time at home and here that we are done with this pandemic, but, unfortunately, it is not done with us.
This week, this body has failed to take minimally responsible action. And I am going to speak for a few minutes to what it means that we have failed to come together to pass another urgently needed appropriations bill both to meet our domestic needs for therapeutics and vaccines and for treatment and for the development of the next vaccine for the next variant and what it means that we have delivered zero additional resources for global public health to address this worst global pandemic in a century.
The bill that we should be taking up now and is being blocked by disagreements would have provided $10 billion to help provide additional protection for 330 million Americans, to buy the therapeutics that we need, to invest in the research to make sure that we are ready for the next variant, to finish providing the public health support for vaccinations.
While we may think we are done with the virus, 30,000 Americans yesterday tested positive. It has touched all of our communities, our families, my own family, our own neighborhoods. We are not done with this.
Senator Schumer and others of my colleagues have been saying on this floor and in public and in private relentlessly, we must deliver more resources. Well, I am here to say that we cannot get this pandemic under control here in the United States and secure the safety and health of our people until we have delivered meaningful vaccine protection around the world.
It is shortsighted for us to say that because we are done with it, it is done with us. I will remind you, we have twice before gone through periods where things were looking better, things were looking up, and then the Delta variant emerged, the Omicron variant emerged in other places in the world where vaccination rates were not what we might hope for, not what we have achieved here and in other countries.
So let me briefly explain why this is a case of ``pay me now or pay me later.'' I understand the fiscal concerns that have driven some to say we should spend no more, but I think we will discover the foolishness of a view that says we need not spend more.
First, it is just a waste of money, folks. We have already bought hundreds of millions of vaccine doses that are now not going to be delivered in countries in the world, and particularly in Africa, where the public health systems are not developed enough to actually translate vaccine doses into vaccinations.
As I learned during the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, that last mile from the capital to the regions to villages is really hard to navigate. It is hard to navigate here in the United States, heck. But in countries without cold storage chains, without rural public health resources, without the resources to pay for people to go and vaccinate, not having that last dollar to go that last mile means that we are letting people die when we have got the vaccines to save their lives; and it means we continue to have 2.8 billion unvaccinated people around the world.
Second, this is a moment where we can teach the world, again, that the United States, long the most reliable global public health partner, can be counted on in this critical moment. Dozens of countries could not get our vaccines 6 months or a year ago, so they have relied on Chinese and Russian vaccines that are ineffective against Omicron. A variant emerged able to get around Sinopharm and Sputnik, the vaccines delivered by the Chinese and Russians.
So we have a moment when dozens of countries around the world are asking for our help. We have got the vaccines; we have got the opportunity; and we are failing to take advantage of this moment.
The most compelling reason, of course, is our own people's health. We have seen this cycle before, and we will see this cycle again.
How bad is the vaccination status in other places around the world? Well, briefly: Yemen, a country undergoing a horrific war with widespread famine, their vaccination rate is less than 1.5 percent. In Haiti, in our hemisphere, a nation of 11 million people, their vaccination rate is below 1 percent. The number of folks fully vaccinated in two great countries on the continent of Africa--Tanzania, 60 million people; Nigeria, 200 million people--below 5 percent.
We cannot afford to allow this virus, COVID-19, which is like a safecracker, out there in the world to just keep twisting the dials and testing, testing, testing--because every time it infects someone, it has a chance to mutate. Every time it mutates, it has a chance to get past our defenses.
We will regret this failure. We need to treat this like the global health emergency it is, and we need to realize that we already had hundreds of millions of people facing food insecurity before the Russian invasion of Ukraine accelerated the vulnerability of millions of people around the world because Ukraine is the breadbasket from which is fed countries all over the region: the Middle East and North Africa, from Syria to Somalia. We are going to see food riots, increased instability, and millions more in hunger.
So, folks, I will keep at this. I will keep working. I will keep mobilizing and engaging my colleagues, both Democratic and Republican, in making the case until it is done; but we have a moral imperative, an economic imperative, a political imperative, a humanitarian imperative to save our own country and our own people by providing the resources the world needs and deserves.
We have so many good partners in this--organizations like One, USGOC, Care, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children, Bread for the World, and many others--too many to name. But we need the same level of energy and commitment and engagement in this Chamber that we have heard from calls from around our country and our world. The world is looking to the United States to use the vaccines we have, use the resources we have, provide the support to get us on the other side of this pandemic globally. Mr. President, this is the moment that we should do it.
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