045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 4: A Year of Stupid: Outrage of the Year

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 4: A Year of Stupid: Outrage of the Year

Here's another reason for skipping Two Weeks of Stupid: Because this week's choice has been elevated to Outrage of the Year. And it can be told very easily:

In just six weeks, the six weeks prior to Christmas, the US, the United Kingdom, and the European Union together secured more coronavirus vaccine doses than the entire continent of Africa received in the entire year.

According to an analysis by the People's Vaccine Alliance, between November 11 and December 21, the EU, UK, and US obtained 513 million vaccine doses. African countries got just 500 million doses across the whole of 2021.

A good part of this is the greed-driven selfishness of the pharmaceutical industry, which maintains a stranglehold on vaccine production, abetted by some developed nations such as the UK and Germany which are blocking action at the World Trade Organization on a temporary waiver of patent rights on the vaccines so poorer countries could produce their own.

And in case you're wondering, the combined population of the EU, UK, and US is about 810 million. The population of Africa is about 1.4 billion, over 70% more.

This is not only inhumane, it's stupid. Remember the Omicron variant first appeared in southern Africa and as we are constantly telling the anti-vaxxers here at home, unvaccinated people are providing a genetic breeding ground for new variants to emerge.

Inhumanity, greed, selfishness, and stupidity in one package. That is a gold-medal worthy Outrage. It is in fact the Outrage of the Year.