Doctor on CNN Alarmed by ‘Historic Decimation’ in Hispanic Communities from Covid: The PTSD ‘Will Last a Generation’
Dr. Peter Hotez, the direct of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, spoke with CNN’s Ana Cabrera on Thursday about the impact of Covid misinformation and how the high number of deaths, especially in the Hispanic community, would cause lasting harm.
“The bar to halt transmission of Covid-19 — it is doable — but it’s a high bar,” said Hotez. “We’re talking about 85%, 90% of the entire U.S. population vaccinated.”
Noting that skeptics had called that percentage “impossible,” Hotez insisted that it was not, pointing out that we were reaching that level for diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria, and pertussis. However, he added, it did take time “to build that ecosystem” and vaccine hesitancy was holding us back.
“So when do you think we’ll get there?” asked Cabrera.
Hotez said it was important to “keep trying,” and “reach across the aisle.” The vaccine mandates that the Biden administration had enacted and others they were considering would help, but “that’s only still going to get us part of the way there.”
There were still about 75 million Americans who needed to be vaccinated, he explained, and a lot of the regulation of vaccines was done at the state level, such as vaccine mandates at schools, so the “hardest part” would be working with red state governors to convince them “to get better buy-in and a greater level of advocacy, and going beyond just saying everyone is free to do what they want — that’s not going to work for us.”
“Right now more people are getting their booster shot per day than people getting a first or second shot, according to the CDC,” said Cabrera. “What’s your reaction to that?”
Hotez mentioned that 100,000 Americans had died from Covid-19 over the summer “despite the availability of safe and effective vaccines.”
“This is defiance,” he continued, “and I don’t even call it from misinformation or disinformation any more, I call this anti-science aggression coming from political extremism on the right and that is the reality. We have to figure out a way to tackle this, it’s death by anti-science, 100,000 Americans have lost their lives from anti-science aggression.”
Cabrera mentioned recent “tragic” and “heartbreaking” statistics from the CDC that Covid-19 had taken the parents or grandparents of 140,000 American children, as many as 1 in 500 kids, asking Hotez for his perspective on the long term impacts of this.
Hotez noted the many deaths in the Hispanic communities in his state of Texas, with so many 40 to 60 year old parents dying from Covid and orphaning adolescents and young adults.
“You know, I testified before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and said this is historic decimation of Hispanic communities that will take us years and years to recover, if we ever can…parents who lost their lives needlessly.”
“This will take our country years to recover from,” he concluded. “The post-traumatic stress from what’s happened will last a generation.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
