If there was ever a concrete example of the effectiveness of COVID vaccines, it is the current situation unfolding in Hong Kong. Today, Hong Kong — a wealthy and modern financial center — now has the highest COVID-related death rate in the developed world. Overwhelmingly, the elderly, unvaccinated residents, including toddlers and children too young to be immunized, have been hit hardest by the most recent Omicron variant outbreak. This past January, less than 1 in 5 Hong Kong residents above the age of 80 had been fully vaccinated with two doses, and almost none had three. That percentage has risen since then, but experts say it is still too little, too late, especially compared with Singapore, South Korea and Japan, where the elderly were a priority for vaccinations. I find this statistic incredible given that public health officials in both the U.S. and Canada recommended late last year that anyone over sixty-five should get a booster vaccine shot in light of the Omicron variant, bringing the total to at least three doses. In Ontario, Canada, for example, seniors in long-term care and in senior residences were even given a fourth shot to ensure that their immune systems could better resist the Omicron variant. As a result, the number of deaths among seniors has significantly and steadily declined since the vaccines were first introduced in both countries.
Since the air-born Omicron variant is highly contagious, almost 90 percent of elderly care facilities in Hong Kong have COVID cases, and to date about 4,700 care home workers have tested positive. On the other hand, the number of new COVID cases in Ontario remains low, especially as residential staff had been mandated to have at least two doses of the vaccine since the summer of 2021. Workers in long-term care homes are currently required to have two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to stay on the job, and they have until March 14th to get third shots. For obvious reasons, this is the only sector in which the Ontario provincial government has made COVID-19 vaccination a requirement for employment.
When it comes to children aged between the ages of 5 and 12, both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Canada Public Health Agency recommended that COVID vaccines be given. Both public health agencies concluded that the benefits of protecting children against COVID-19 are seen as far outweighing any risk. Yet, here you have Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo in a recent press conference, recommending that healthy children not receive the coronavirus vaccine. Florida became the first state to officially recommend against COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children. Dr. Lapado however did not outline any specifics or rationale behind this recommendation. Of course, such positions have been behind the COVID-related policies of Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, who has previously resisted the implementation of several public health measures. Even officials in the state’s Department of Health and Human Services have asserted that unvaccinated teenagers are much more likely to end up in the hospital with COVID-19 than are vaccinated ones.
Interestingly, Florida ranked 19th among states in terms of the share of people receiving at least one vaccine shot, with about 78 percent of its residents at least partially vaccinated. According to the CDC, the national vaccination rate is 76.5 percent. However, when it comes to COVID-related deaths per 100,000 population, Florida ranks fifth in the country, just behind West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and South Carolina. In the past week ending March 6th , Florida reported 1,207 deaths from COVID-19. In the week before that, 888 deaths were reported. In total, Johns Hopkins University data shows that almost 71,000 Floridians have died from the disease since the pandemic began or 330 for every 100,000 people. To date in the U.S., 958,621 people have died since the pandemic began, with the national COVID-19 death rate standing at 288 per 100,000 Americans.
Although the Omicron variant appears to have peaked, the virus is still spreading. In Florida, the infection rate is still far higher than the national average. It’s one thing to prevent children from wearing masks in school, but it’s another for the Governor of Florida to suggest that there is no need to vaccinate children! Maybe, the Governor should spend some time in Hong Kong?
FROLITICKS 
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