 and welcome to Cooper Union. Today we'll be looking at human right to health in a global pandemic, global vaccination for good health in Hawaii and around our world. Today we have three amazing advocates, activists, and analysts looking at this global issue and bringing it home from the international to our islands. I'd like to first talk about the state of the global pandemic. As we see here in Hawaii, our numbers are spiking. We see across the US more and more people entering hospitals in a year and over a half later, we're almost worse than we've ever been. Akshita, what's the state of the global pandemic today and what can be done? Yeah, yeah, thanks, Josh. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of good news on this front. COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths are once again increasing in nearly all states across the country, mainly fueled by the Delta variant, which is much more contagious than past versions of the virus. And we've seen that the highest spread of cases and those experiencing the most severe outcomes are this is happening in places with really low vaccination rates. And we can see that across the country we've had really varied vaccination rates and that's really contributing to our own ability to deal with this new super strain that's a lot more infectious than the previous versions. But that's just in the US context. Globally, the majority of the world remains unvaccinated and so the Delta variant has full and complete freedom to wreck, completely wreck ravage, all of these countries that have no form of protection, for at least for us in America, vaccination is the most effective prevention measure we have. And unfortunately, our international brothers and sisters are still using masks and social distancing as their best way of defense. Thank you so much. Actually, it's true. I mean, we have reached 70% just this week, a month later than what President Biden was aiming for. And but what you really talked about it really wrecking and wrecking the world, it's true. I just returned from an overseas trip and we do not understand what's going on in the world but we really need to understand how we're all in this together. Johan, can you share a little bit about the numbers in Hawaii but also how we are all facing this global pandemic and how we have to be united in this struggle? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in Hawaii alone, let's say which has been absolutely head and shoulders above the others throughout the pandemic in terms of staying safe and preventing transmissions. However, the Delta variant, it doesn't care about that. It's just on Sunday alone a couple of days ago we had 450 new infections. Nowadays we've got a seven day average, it's 327. It's something that has just been getting worse. It's record numbers. It's things we've never seen before. And it's something that people didn't expect. And that's what happens when rather than staying together we see ourselves as individuals and view things like vaccinations just from our own perspective. But when you actually take the global perspective and take a broader perspective you can see that the way things are going right now is, and as part of what I do I do a lot of immunology research. I do a lot of maternal health research and maternal disease and just disease transmissions. And what we're legitimately doing is we're creating an environment. We are artificially pressuring this virus to mutate and to get worse and worse to the point where vaccinations aren't gonna matter anymore. We are transforming this bug into a super bug. And that's mostly because a lot of people might not realize that this virus can get worse, that vaccinations aren't gonna prevent it, that mass and social distancing as great as it is it can't solve everything. And that's why we need global vaccination rates. We need national vaccination rates. We need all vaccination rates to go up. And I think what we're seeing now in Hawaii is just a consequence of a more individual perspective and why we need to start seeing things from a bigger picture. Thank you so much. And that really points out an important principle here in Hawaii of kuleana, our responsibility to each other and really understanding that sense of solidarity in Hawaii, in our community, but then also with global civil society. And we really appreciate the approach that your NGO is taking of our human rights approach to help. Paul, would you like to expand on that a bit? Global vaccination rates are extraordinarily low. And what we have seen is that you can't really, no one is safe. Everyone says this, but we kind of need to internalize it and really understand it. No one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere. Viruses spread quickly. That pandemics are happening faster and getting worse. That's a product of deforestation or tropical rainforest and wildlife trade. First and foremost, there were six times more new diseases leaping from animals to humans in 2010 than there were in 1980. That sounds like an anodyne fact. Like, huh, that's weird, but what it actually means is that we could not, the way to think about COVID-19 is not a once in a century kind of thing that just fell out of the sky, but a product of policies that is accelerating and getting worse and that we should be anticipating COVID the sequel while COVID, the first movie is still playing in theaters. Until we get, basically everyone everywhere vaccinated and basically all at the same time, this will not let up at all. Anyway. It's a very good point and it connects also with all the multiple crises we're facing in humanity. We have the climate crisis here in the Pacific and Oceania. We're having crisis of the health crisis and they're all interconnected. We have to see that and we're having a huge meeting right now preparing for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Summit that'll take place in Glasgow, but there's also the biological diversity one and we have to understand that in a way the Hawaiian concept of Malama Honua, we have to take care of each other, but also our earth. And Akshita, what are some of the actions that we're moving towards to actually make sure that everyone everywhere is taken care of so that everyone will be able to be able to survive this pandemic? Yeah, I mean, I think you said it perfectly in the sense that there is a real responsibility that we have morally, ethically, but also as global citizens, right? Thinking about human rights, that we have a responsibility to provide this assistance, this international assistance and collaboration to help realize other countries' access to the essential needs that they have during COVID and a big part of that is making sure that vaccines are made available around the globe. As Paul was saying, very few people in low-income countries have received a vaccination. That number actually, when you look at it statistically, is 1.1%, which sounds so low that it's almost like I made it up, but 1.1% of people in low-income countries have received just at least one dose of the vaccine. So the majority of the people, almost 100% of folks in these countries are completely at risk. And we have a real responsibility to make sure that they don't continue to stay at risk. And as a government, I think, especially as the US government, there's a lot of people and a lot of folks who are looking to us to provide leadership, to provide answers in this vacuum of addressing these fundamental human needs and also sharing the knowledge and the resources we have when it comes to vaccines. So there's been a lot of legislation that Right to Health has been working to develop and endorse that's focusing exclusively on that front of being able to ensure vaccine access to all of our low- and middle-income country partners, but also working with them together to address the fact that, as you yourself said, the environmental health concerns are very much tied in with our own human health concerns. And we have to work in partnership with these countries to recognize that if we want to prevent the next one, we have to address environmental health. We have to address climate change because talking about just global health isn't going to fix the problems. And we have a lot of legislation in the pipeline right now that's hoping to address exactly those two points. And I think Paul can speak more specifically to that. Absolutely. And what we're looking at is, I think everybody at this point is exhausted. Everybody wants it to be over, but we all know the virus isn't over with us. And people are thinking more of vacations as opposed to vaccinations. And it's sad because people in vacation areas such as Hawaii, Fiji, in Europe, it's the areas where all the Europeans go to visit in Mallorca, people there are still focusing on health. And you can see the sirens of the world trying to learn us all to think about what's going on and be aware of that and not let people perish around the planet. Johan, what are some of the things that are going on since this is one of the largest challenges facing many people in a generation? Yeah, I mean, in terms of, I mean, so in terms of what we've got going on personally, I think I'm sure Paul's gonna be able to go into much more detail, but just to give some quick background as to us and what right to health action actually is. So we are basically a 50 state, 120,000 person strong work, grassroots movement of scholars, frontline health workers, COVID survivors, people who have lost people to COVID. And so we're organizing to basically get legislation pushed through that can not only stop the pandemic and provide relief for the pandemic that's going on right now, but also like Paul said, looking towards the sequel, looking towards COVID the sequel, we wanna put things through that will not only provide relief right now, but also prevent future pandemics. A big problem in the rhetoric nowadays and the rhetoric out in the world is the way things are often, and legislation is often pushed through as a result of a reaction, instead of a preventative action. When we're met with challenges, when we're met with struggles, the first thing we do is we try to come up with a way to provide relief for those struggles, to end those struggles. And we don't focus enough on preventing the next struggle. And obviously I won't discount that it's incredibly important to provide relief for the pandemic that's going on right now, of course, but we can do both. We can enact legislation that can not only stop the pandemic now, but also prevent future ones. And the reason a lot of people might not realize that is because when effective prevention measures are in place, we don't hear about it because it's working. And since we don't hear about it, a lot of people might not realize the importance of it and the importance of pushing it through. You know, successful prevention measures, the whole goal of it is to never have to talk about it. And that's the goal we should be striving for instead of trying to prevent things after they have. So I mean, Paul, if you wanna go more into detail about this specific thing that we're trying to do now, that'd be great. Johan, I think that's a great point. It really points out how it's a people-centered advocacy approach that's preventative, participatory and making sure that we can all get involved and make a difference. And it's great to bring in Paul now because we know last week, there was a history being made with a strong bipartisan majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passing the biggest global health bill in the generation. It's known as the International Pandemic Preparedness and COVID-19 Response Act, Senate Bill 2297. And it's headed for a full Senate vote. But we're very fortunate that Paul with us was also very involved earlier in other campaigns, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. And Paul, can you share a bit about how this got to be on the desk of many senators and how people can be involved? And we can spend the rest of our 15 minutes exploring that deeper on how people can be part of this movement and save lives together. Awesome. I appreciated how Johan was talking about how grassroots movement has come together and it's all across the country and all across the world. And there are a lot of us who would like to forget and go on vacation. There are a lot of people who can't forget, the people who were the frontline healthcare workers, the people who were suffering from long COVID, the people who lost their jobs, the people who have lost their loved ones, of whom there are millions, million for every single person who has died of the millions of people who've died, there are as many as 15 to 20 people who were touched by that around the world. So we've tried to build a movement, us and our colleagues around the world, the people who are not going to forget and to repeal these underlying policies that cause pandemics and allow them to spread unchecked in poorer parts of the world and replace them with transformative victories for racial and social and economic justice. The bill you mentioned that, Ipkra, I don't know, we don't have a very good name for it. The senator's name to the international pandemic prevention, pandemic preparedness and prevention, Coronavirus Relief Act of 2021, Ipkra. So anyway, it does three things that are transported. This is history in the making. We have the chance to get this across the finish line together in the next month. It has three major chapters. One is that it vaccinates everyone everywhere in the world. The United States would, we wouldn't have to pay for all of the costs. We've already paid for all of the costs or most of, sorry, much of the cost of inventing these vaccines. These were the people's vaccines that were invented with taxpayer medicines. They should be available to the people rather than being guarded behind private patent monopolies that benefit really only the big pharmaceutical industries. Didn't spend time hardly on inventing these things. So this bill gets 60% of the world vaccinated by the middle of next year. That's an enormous thing. And this is the way and the only way that we're going to be able to stop things like the next variant, Delta, Zeta, whatever it's going to be. The next chapter of the bill is something that we've been calling for since day one of this pandemic, which is a new global fund, a new global kind of a funding pool that people in low and middle income countries and governments can apply to for funds to prepare for a future pandemic and stop it from happening. And we did fight really hard on something that all of y'all are touching on around making sure that it wasn't just kind of a containment bill, like one that says, oh crap, the four people in some four country are sick again, so we need to stop the spread. What we've worked really hard. And that had been where this thing called the global health security agenda was focused entirely was stopping the spread. That's legitimate. We want to stop the spread, but we also, what Great to Health brought to this fight was we also want to stop the outbreaks in the first place. We don't accept it where people have to get sick before the donor nations intervene. So that's a racist colonial viewpoint. So, and that's where you bring in all these folks who were very concerned they need to work on or concerned about the climate and want to work on deforestation and wildlife trade. This is a primary driver, more than 80% of new outbreaks come from deforestation or wildlife trade. So if we can make a dent there, you get to stop pandemics and as you get a side helping of preventing climate change. So we're extremely excited about this launch of this new global fund. We need to get it done. The third thing is that the bill supercharges the global health security agenda. That was a Obama era executive order that in a Trump era executive order, the executive orders themselves were not bad. They were limited because presidents only have so much authority. If you need to spend a bunch of money to pandemic proof the planet, you can't really do that with an executive order. So this bill puts teeth into the global health security agenda around preparedness and containment, meeting something called international health regulations. These WHO standards that countries are supposed to try to meet to stop pandemics from spreading. They weren't able to because they're poor. There was no money on the table to make it happen. So now we're going to try to get that done. It's the biggest bill in a generation. We definitely need the good senators from Hawaii to sign on its co-sponsors. And we're pretty excited about helping try to get this across the finish line before the year is over. Thank you so much. And between both of you, really sharing that human story because that's why many of you came together. It's because people are being impacted. And if we're going to take this visionary legislation and turn it into law, which then helps people living their lives, that's what's most important. I remember also foreign relations chair, Senator Jim Rich said, this bill is the most important thing any of us have ever worked on. Actually, can you share what it means to be involved with this? And what people can do to also participate? Yeah, yeah, thanks for that question. I think, you know, so many of us have been drawn to this work and our team at least because as frontline healthcare workers, as doctors, as nurses, they've been able to see firsthand all of the different factors that affects somebody's health, right? When a government fails to be able to provide the right to food or shelter or living wage or quality healthcare, you already have a problem. That's a problem that exists before a pandemic comes around. All COVID has done is just exasperate existing problems in our society, existing problems in our healthcare system that we need to do a better job of addressing. And I think being able to work on a bill like this that really aims to look at the big picture, not just domestically, but globally, is just a wonderful opportunity to put our efforts and put our energy towards something that's gonna make sure that this disaster never happens again. You know, as a public health scientist, I can tell you anyone in public health could tell you that we saw COVID-19 coming and it could have been prevented, which is what makes it so unacceptable that we are still grappling with this now more almost a year and a half later. But we can also say looking at the science and looking at the data that there are more pandemics coming. So it's now on us, all of us, to get involved and take action and I think part of our success at Right to Health Action has been that there have been many people who have been affected by COVID-19 and have been looking for something to do. And we've been able to provide a way to channel that frustration, that energy, grief and the outrage that people are experiencing and channel that into something productive. We have teams of volunteers across the country that we train to meet with their congressional representatives, to be able to meet them face to face, talk with their offices, share their stories, oftentimes heartbreaking stories of loss, how COVID-19 has affected their lives, losing their jobs, losing their insurance, losing their loved ones. And we train them on how to use those powerful stories to really force their representatives to pay attention and call to their attention this important legislation that we've been working on and drafting and endorsing and pushing forward and asking them to take action. And so there's a role for everyone to play in this fight, right? If this is something that's an impact to you, there is a role for any engaged constituent to play. You don't have to be a policy person. You don't have to be an activist with experience. We can train you to plug in. You just have to reach out. Oh, it's really important, especially knowing when you look at the People's Pandemic Prevention Plan, I mean, some of those highlights that we can vaccinate 60% of the world by mid-2020. That would save so many lives, especially dealing with those variants, the gamma and the next one. Johan put it so well, that new historic global fund for preparedness and prevention. Maybe you could share a little bit more, Johan, about the building the health systems to stop the pandemics and the international health regulations and some of those elements. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even, I mean, so in order to build these health systems, in order to actually have existing systems in place that can actually truly help towards preventing future pandemics, you know, there's a lot we need to do. And I think first and foremost, the power comes from, you know, the people and it might sound cliche to say, but look, the power comes from the people. I think too often and often we get caught in, you know, too often we get caught in the fact that we feel powerless, you know, we feel like we can't do anything, we feel like people around us are dying, we're getting sick. And you know, that's why I love right to help action so much is it actually provides an outlet for this. It provides an outlet to where we can all go and we can all enact change together. We can all affect change together and we can establish these health systems that you're referring to together. And that's primarily why we need people to get involved. We need people to be making calls. We need people to be making calls to Senator Schatz and Senator Hirono asking them why they haven't sponsored the bill yet or telling them how they feel and telling them their stories, you know, explaining why we need this fund and why we need this fund to enact these health systems. And, you know, I would encourage anybody watching this, anybody listening in, you know, to make that call, to call your senators to point their attention towards this bill, to point their attention towards these health systems that we need to reinforce, that we need to strengthen through this bill, through the provisions of this bill. And I think this truly is a call to action. This is a call to action that not many of us are ever gonna have the chance to do again. Like Paul said, this is a historic bill. This can prevent future ones. And so yeah, I mean, in terms of truly putting forward a strong health system that can prevent future pandemics, I truly think we need everybody in this together and I urge everybody in Hawaii across the country to make the calls, to write the emails and to join in these meetings with senators and representatives all over the country. It is a chance to join a campaign for justice and to be a human rights hero, no cape required. Paul, you brought us some interesting elements to think about it. It is really looking at the climate crisis and this global pandemic in the same light. I know there's elements in there to invest in indigenous communities to fight deforestation and wild dive trade. And we know that's the central drivers of these new disease spillovers. And we know Senator Schatz actually focuses on indigenous rights as a champion on climate justice. So it is important to think of those elements on partnering with our indigenous peoples to realize once again, we're all in this together on our planet. And Paul, it looks like you've disappeared for a second there. There you go. Senator Schatz and Representative Case are on the Appropriations Committee in Congress. That sounds like a really boring detail, except to what that means is they have all the power because they control money. They control what gets funded. Senator Schatz talks a good game and puts forward really important legislation, message bills around deforestation and climate change and stuff that we haven't really been able to hear much from him on actually preventing pandemics of the future and the way do you prevent pandemics of the future as it turns out as you do something about deforestation. So we would really appreciate any help. Here's something that might be a useful talking point when talking to appropriators. Everyone is right now, they were throwing their own numbers like trillion, $3.2 trillion and $500 million new dollars and a billion dollar bipartisan package and all this stuff. And it's so hard to get your head around. A bunch of experts from everywhere from the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment and Mackenzie consultants basically experts agree that it's going to cost about $20 billion every year forever to prevent pandemics in the future. That's a lot of money, right? But I did some math and just looking at how much that COVID-19 alone has cost the United States economy alone a very conservative estimate that doesn't include anything the government has spent but just literally the economic impact on Americans is about $16 trillion. So it's 16 trillion versus 20 billion, what does that mean? Well, if the United States were to pay as much as one third of that 20 billion every year right through this global fund where we can get the rest of the world to pay their share but even if we're paying all the way up to a third which is more than our share that's about $6.7 billion a year. At $6.7 billion a year would take 2,400 years for the cost of pandemic prevention to equal the cost of one single COVID-19 level event. We're on course without change to have a COVID-19 level event every 15 years or so except that's accelerating. So it could become less. So we hope that these good members of the Appropriations Committee representative case and Senator Schatz will find it in their hearts and find it here from their constituents to incorporate the funds that we need to really pandemic group the planet in the coming months. Thank you so much. And we're gearing up on the last minute and I think you all shared really the vulnerability that we're all in this together on the small planet. I see the planet actually floating behind you Paul there in the background it looks like with the winds of change blowing. And so we all have to really come together and really create what I think we're calling for with this legislation is a moral architecture that then make sure that health is a human right for all around the world. I want to thank all three of you for joining me and we could definitely do another full show in the future but we thank everyone for participating. We really appreciate you coming together and creating this movement not only for your community not only to try to get our capital to do the right thing but also for global civil society to make sure that the health of all people is respected, protected and fulfilled. And we appreciate all the work and we know that everyone should be informed and be involved and try to influence this process as well because it is our Kulian it's all a responsibility. So thank you all three of you for appearing on Cooper Union and we look forward to focusing on the human right to health and we hope the next time we meet our numbers will be lower and that the world will be in a better place and it will be because of the hard work that you've all done. Mahalo Nui and thank you so much. Thanks for what you're doing Josh. Thanks for inviting us. Thanks for having us. Aloha.