Science guides politicians

For a long time in developed countries, the value of science has always been respected, and politicians have taken it into account to make their decisions on fundamental issues such as health, climate change, mass transit and in countless issues that require adequate studies and testing. Unfortunately, politics has rotten around the world so much that it is very common to find that its practice, which is supposed to be aimed at promoting the common good, has ended up promoting personal business, and in this sense the only thing that matters is what is appropriate. For the sake of a political actor, he either perpetuates himself in office or accumulates more wealth.

For several weeks now, health scientists have been warning about global inequality in the field of vaccines, which manifests itself in the way the richer countries monopolize all available supplies, leaving the most underdeveloped countries without access and where the authorities are not hitting. Anything, will have consequences because as infection continues in different parts of the world, new strains of the virus emerge that can mean dangerous complications even for countries that have advanced a lot with vaccination. Examples are given from Israel, Great Britain, and countries where the vaccination plan has made serious progress and how it could end up infertile if Covid mutations spread.

The US State Department announced yesterday that it is already working on developing a plan to share vaccines with the rest of the world, taking into account the risk that the pandemic not only ends, but may worsen as a result of abandoning it. They are found in many places in the world, including poor Guatemala where they don’t even know where the plane they said left Russia to bring in the Sputnik vaccine, which already says it all.

They haven’t decided yet whether they will use the Covax mechanism, which has failed, or whether they will work bilaterally and directly with countries that need vaccines to be able to provide them, but the truth is that politicians are allowing scientists to guide them in the steps they need to take to confront the health crisis. Affect all of humanity appropriately.

In the United States, about 30 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, but there is strong resistance among many sectors to self-injection, whether it be because of ridiculous conspiracy theories that stalk social networks, or for silly political reasons or just the presence of people. Who does not believe in vaccines. The truth is that if herd immunity is not achieved, which should happen when the majority of people are vaccinated, the virus will continue to multiply and infect many people. Today we already know that there are vaccines that must be replaced every year to maintain their effectiveness, something like the influenza vaccine, which indicates that we are very far from being able to close the Covid season, but if there are provisions like those declaring that Guatemala will need many years to vaccinate its people Without a doubt, hopes have not only weakened, but will also disappear.