OPINION:
“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” President Biden had repeatedly said since taking office. That statement alone demonstrates his approach to fighting COVID-19: pitting Americans against one another, blaming them for his failures and ignoring the science that could have already helped end this pandemic. The effectiveness of this strategy is visible in his low approval ratings, sinking below 40%, one million new COVID-19 cases a day, record numbers of hospitalizations and a divided nation.
During his pursuit of the presidency, Mr. Biden sold himself as a uniter, an ally of the light, who would use science to “shut down” the pandemic. Those of us who served with him in Congress knew better. He spent over three decades in the Senate bullying opponents and demagoguing those who disagreed with him. He was focused on accruing power, not bridging differences or taking courageous stands.
It’s never too late though. Two years into this pandemic, there is a chance for the president to change course, to shift our national strategy to mitigate covid away from “vaccine and nothing else” to one that actually listens to science — not just the paragon of self-love and self-promotion, Dr. Anthony Fauci — while using every means we have at our disposal to treat the sick and stop the virus.
While the vaccines have helped some, they are not an impregnable defense as Mr. Biden has claimed. Infection rates are rising nationwide because the most recent strain of COVID-19, the omicron variant, does indeed infect the vaccinated who in turn can spread the disease. Despite the demonizing of the unvaccinated by politicians and public health officials, it’s clear vaccines alone will not stop this virus.
An array of cheap, safe, generic medicines can help people recover from a COVID-19 infection.
Fluvoxamine, a drug regularly used to treat depression and anxiety, is only the latest to prove effective at reducing the symptoms of COVID-19 by reducing inflammation. Two separate studies, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Lancet document and confirm improved outcomes among COVID-19 patients treated with fluvoxamine.
The latter study even demonstrated a 91% reduction in mortality rates among COVID-19 patients treated with the drug. Fluvoxamine is not only effective — it’s already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It’s safe, and generic versions are widely available and inexpensive, about $1 a pill.
The science is clear, as Mr. Biden likes to say. Yet like other repurposed medicines, this therapeutic help goes ignored by this administration and public health officials. Instead, they focus on the development of new, expensive anti-viral medicines. Again, in a pandemic, every single tool at our disposal should be used. But these new medicines are endeavors that cost taxpayers billions of dollars and just so happen to dramatically enrich the world’s elites.
The rush to approve and ramp up supply of Paxlovid, Pfizer’s much hyped and heralded new oral antiviral is running into predictable problems with setbacks and shortages. Alabama, for example, where hospitalization and infection rates are at an all-time high, only received 780 courses of the medicine which were quickly administered. If the drug is not available, it is not going to be very effective.
Why not use therapeutics that are cheap, readily available, have a history of safety, and have benefited millions? Given rising inflation and America’s massive deficit and national debt, we don’t have to multiply our economic crisis while fighting a health crisis. This, though, would require Mr. Biden changing his tune and changing his administration’s approach to COVID-19 to actually “follow the science.”
Instead of demonizing unvaccinated Americans, the president can bring the country together and promote all options for fighting this terrible virus, including inexpensive therapeutics, some of which have proven to be safer than acetaminophen. Better late than never for the American people.
• Rep. Louie Gohmert represents Texas’ 1st Congressional District. He is a former U.S. Army JAG officer and later served as a district judge and chief justice of a Court of Appeals in Texas.
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