大象传媒

America鈥檚 Covid-19 vaccination programme is progressing at a staggering pace and states are beginning to reopen. But the country also tops world rankings when it comes to deaths from the virus. As worrying new variants emerge, could they now undermine America鈥檚 progress?

Across the US, communities of colour have been impacted disproportionately by the pandemic. Despite that, vaccinations of Black and Hispanic Americans have lagged. One person who鈥檚 trying to change that is retired clinical social worker, Cynthia Finch, in eastern Tennessee. By keeping an ever-expanding list of people in her community who want vaccines, she鈥檚 helped facilitate thousands of jabs. 鈥淲e have created an access for our people of colour to get into the lines鈥�.

Dr. Michael Osterholm is one of the world鈥檚 leading epidemiologists. In early 2020 he raised the alarm over the severity of the incoming pandemic. Now he鈥檚 warning that if the US doesn鈥檛 help vaccinate lower income countries quickly, it will continue to be impacted by dangerous new variants of Covid-19. 鈥淚 have said for the past few months, that I thought the darkest days of the pandemic were still ahead of us鈥� we are not out of the danger zone yet with this virus on a global level鈥�.