“No One is Safe Until All of Us are Safe.”

THAT is one of the main lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic that we’ve all been living through for nearly 16 months now, be it here in NYC or around the globe.

Here in NYC, we are starting to climb out of pandemic lockdown as more people get vaccinated. In other parts of the world, the pandemic still rages, particularly in low-income/developing countries, many of them in the Global South, Millions of people are sickened, require intensive care hospitalization, are suffering long-term complications, and many are dying, often literally in the streets. And all of that is mostly preventable if only diagnostic tests, treatments, and vaccinations were widely available …but they are not (yet.)

This situation is a moral and ethical crisis that cries out for rich western nations to act quickly.  It also puts all of us here back home at risk for viral variants that could evade the protections of current vaccines. That prospect could force us back into a public health lockdown, tank our economy again, and lead to new surges in illness and death. We can’t let that happen.

Who’s the problem:

This dystopian scenario is completely preventable, but one thing stands in the way: the profiteering of #BigPharma vaccine makers and their political shills.

These powerful forces are currently aggressively fighting against a proposal from over 100 nations, led by India and South Africa, asking the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive the international intellectual property rules that underly COVID-19 vaccines, tests, treatments, and medical equipment. Under such a waiver, all of these products could be mass produced locally as generics, and national populations could be quickly treated and vaccinated, thereby ending the pandemic.

The drug industry’s pushback is being led by our hometown company Pfizer, the world’s largest and most profitable drug company and largest COVID-19 vaccine maker. (In the first quarter of this year, the company took in over $3 billion in revenue from vaccine sales alone.) Pfizer and its Big Pharma pals are spreading outright lies and disinformation about the proposed WTO waiver, and lining up influential countries to stop it from going forward.

The good news is that the Biden administration has come out in support of the waiver request which has given a major boost to its prospects. In addition, the WTO and other international entities have signaled that they are not in favor of allowing the status quo to continue, and intend to pursue negotiations for an agreement to make vaccines widely available worldwide. That said, the devil is always in the details.

Nothing concrete has come to fruition yet, and the industry still has the upper hand. So far, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are standing with Big Pharma and against the waiver negotiation process.

What Can be Done:

Last fall, activist forces here in the US and around the globe came together to form the “Free the Vaccine” campaign, as a companion to the People’s Vaccine movement. Earlier this spring, their campaign launched with simultaneous actions in cities across the US and around the globe. Its goal is to call attention to the stark vaccine disparities between “first world” countries that are starting to stem the pandemic and the rest of the word that is being left behind while Big Pharma laughs all the way to Wall Street. 

Here in NYC, we are proud to be helping to lead this effort along with ACT UP New York, Center for Popular Democracy, Health GAP, New York Trade Justice Coalition, NYC DSA, People’s Action, Right to Health Action, Rise and Resist, and others.

Our main target has been drugmaker Pfizer, where we’ve held 3 events over the course of this spring outside their World Headquarters located in midtown Manhattan, a mere one block from the United Nations campus:

• A “People’s Speak-Out” outside on the sidewalk in early March where everyday New Yorkers shared their own personal stories and perspectives about vaccine equity here in our city and around the globe, as part of an international day of action in communities across the US and world.
• An out-front-on-the-sidewalk “People’s Shareholder Meeting” in late April that coincided with the company’s official one.  It kicked off a national fortnight of actions across the US that lead up to the most recent meeting of the WTO in early May. These actions helped push the Biden administration to take the stance that it has, and we’re glad to have played our part in bringing that about.
• A “March and Vigil to #EndVaccineApartheid” in early June, part of a weeklong series of such events across the US outside the consulates of nations that had yet to support the WTO waiver process.  After gathering outside Pfizer, we marched to the UN Missions of the European Union, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany where we held die-ins on the sidewalks outside their buildings.  The events were held prior to the June WTO meeting and G7 meeting in England.

Next up: 

We and our local Free the Vaccine partners will be taking place in a national week of action in the lead up to the WTO Council meeting on July 21^st.  Watch for future announcement of details!

Looking ahead, there is still much work to do over the coming to get this waiver negotiated and in place as quickly as possible, ideally by sometime this summer, so that countries in need can move ahead quickly to make and administer vaccines to their citizens and end the pandemic for all of us. 

There’s only left in this year’s New York State legislative session, which is scheduled to conclude on Thurs. June 10th. Several health care bills are poised for passage with a slight push, and others need more heft to move them forward toward the goal line. Here’s a run-down of these bills and where things stand:

— Patient Medical Debt Protection Act (S.2521a/A.3479a, Rivera/Gottfried) is an omnibus bill that strengthens consumer rights and protections in a number of ways when patients incur large medical bills that they can’t pay. The bill as a whole is expected to carry over into next year, but one of its provisions limits interest rates health care providers can charge patients and is very close to enactment (S.3057a/A.1538a, Rivera/Gottfried.)

At present, providers can charge up to the full commercial rate (currently around 9%.) This bill would lower the amount to either 3% or the current U.S. Treasury rate (now around 1%), whichever is lower. During the COVID-19 pandemic, more patients have incurred medical debt, and many of them are unemployed with minimal income and often no health insurance, and this bill would keep the amount they owe from growing even larger.  

This interest rate bill has passed through all relevant committees in both the Senate and Assembly, and so is poised in both chambers for floor debate and vote.

— Health Equity Assessment Act (S.1451a/A.191a, Rivera/Gottfried) would require all hospitals that seek to expand, merge, modify, downsize, or close via the State’s “Certificate of Need” process to provide an independent assessment of the health equity impacts of their plans upon the communities they serve.

Over the last 20 years, scores of hospitals across the State have closed, many in low-income communities of color and immigrant communities. The current COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the results of this situation wherein the remaining hospitals in those communities were overwhelmed, and many patients were not able to get the care they needed and some died.

This bill has passed through the Senate, and has passed through all necessary committees in the Assembly so it is ready for floor debate and vote.

— Charity Care reform (S.5954/A.6883, Rivera/Gottfried) would re-apportion how funds from the State’s indigent care pool are distributed to hospitals so that they are directed to “enhanced safety net” hospitals that serve large numbers of uninsured and Medicaid patients.

A large portion of these funds come from the federal government’s “Disproportionate Share Hospital” (DSH) program. Currently, New York is ranked #50 in how these monies are supposed to be distributed, and continue to send significant amounts to large, well-resourced hospital networks that often don’t serve very many uninsured and Medicaid patients.  

In the Assembly, this bill has passed out of the Health Committee and is now before the Ways and Means Committee. In the Senate, it remains before the Health Committee.  At this point, in order for it to move to the floor for debate and vote in either chamber, the Rules Committee would have to intercede.

— New York Health Act (S.5475/A.6058, Rivera/Gottfried) would create a fully-public universal health care program covering all New York residents. This bill has been introduced for many years, and this year for the first time ever, it has a majority of co-sponsors in both the Senate and Assembly.

The COVID-19 pandemic has absolutely shown us in many ways that we as a nation or state must move toward a universal health care program as soon as possible. Estimates are that many lives were unnecessarily lost because we don’t have one.

In the Assembly, this bill has passed out of the Health Committee and is now before the Ways and Means Committee. In the Senate, it remains before the Health Committee. At this point, in order for it to move to the floor for debate and vote in either chamber, the Rules Committee would have to intercede.

You can join in a Statewide Mobilization in Albany taking place next Monday, June 7^th, organized by our colleagues at the Campaign for New York Health. Car pools are being organized from NYC. You can find all the details here.