Delta should remind us

The August 22 article “Delta surge is leading…” does well to bring attention to the continued presence of COVID-19 in our community, but I think it is important to take a step back and consider the virus as a pandemic. After all, the delta variant sprang up halfway around the world eight months ago and we are only now beginning to experience its effects.

In the article, a major healthcare concern is how COVID-19 hospitalizations are affecting the ability to care for other patients. This is true worldwide. In low-income nations that juggle COVID-19 alongside other communicable diseases, there could be as many as 500,000 additional deaths from HIV and 700,000 from Malaria.

The U.S. may be the country with the most COVID-19 cases, but together the world has diagnosed more than 200 million. At the local level, containing the virus has a lot of moving parts, but at the international level, it means giving COVID-19 assistance.

As a volunteer with poverty reduction nonprofit The Borgen Project, I’m familiar with several ways providing international aid can benefit the U.S., and yet none seem more advantageous than the immediate benefit of reducing COVID-19 cases worldwide.

As long as the virus prevails in even one corner of the globe, we are all susceptible to new variants, adverse health effects, and hospitalizations. Our community is not safe until the world is.

Angela Basinger

Spokane