Israel, Denmark, Austria join forces against COVID-19
Israel, Denmark and Austria agreed on Thursday to join forces in the fight against COVID-19 with an investment in research and roll-out of vaccines to protect people against new surges and mutations of the coronavirus.
The leaders of the three countries said their alliance will set up a foundation and vaccine distribution plants in Europe and Israel, based on Israel’s worldleading inoculation drive.
The effort is aimed at getting ahead of another expected surge of COVID-19 and the uncertainty of how long inoculations will remain effective. Details, such as costs and the time frame for opening the projects, were still being worked out, the leaders said.
“We think that by joining the resources of three small but very able and gifted countries, we can better meet these challenges,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. He added that other countries have also expressed interest in the effort.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz added that “this pandemic can only be overcome through global cooperation.”
That has been a delicate question as virus-fighting campaigns faced challenges in places like Europe and raised concerns that the pandemic would last longer in poorer countries that cannot afford vaccination campaigns.
Israel has inoculated more than half of its population in one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns, though it has faced some criticism for not sending significant amounts of vaccines to the Palestinians.
That’s expected to change next week with Israel providing vaccines to some 100,000 Palestinian laborers who work in Israel or its West Bank settlements. Still, the vast majority of the estimated 5 million Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip will remain unvaccinated.
For Netanyahu, the alliance served as a way to flex his political muscle on the international stage ahead of the March 23 elections. “Vaccination nation,” as he calls Israel, would become “vaccination nations,” to include Denmark and Austria, he said, adding the group would welcome more international partners.
While Israel does not produce vaccines, the prime minister has moved aggressively to secure enough vaccines for Israel’s 9.3 million people in deals with Pfizer and Moderna. Netanyahu has even offered some surplus vaccines to allied nations.
The European leaders said they wanted to learn from Israel’s success. Austria is among a number of European Union members that have expressed frustration over the vaccine’s slow rollout among the 27-nation bloc. Kurz said he was happy with some of the EU’s handling of the crisis, “but we also need to cooperate worldwide.”
Re Andres Oppenheimer’s Feb. 28 op-ed, “Americans are dying of loneliness, despair. COVID’s to blame, and Biden’s administration must address it:” Sad to read that so many are suffering from isolation, physical and mental distress, exacerbated, we can assume, by financial and food insecurity. We are, indeed, being challenged in many ways.
Fortunately, in MiamiDade County, we have many resources to help individuals and families cope and survive. The gateway to all of these resources is the 211 Helpline.
This free service has trained staff that listens to your concerns and needs, discussing them with you. They then will refer you to several of the thousands of agencies and individuals in our community that provide the services you may need.
Regardless of your situation, whether you need mental health or legal counseling, food, shelter, or medical services, it is all available, usually regardless of your ability to pay.
You are not alone in Miami-Dade.
A ready ear, good counsel and a helping hand are available 24/7.
Just call 211.
– Barry J. White,
president, Mental Health Association
of Miami-Dade County
When young girls watched Kamala Harris take the oath of office as the first woman to become U.S. vice president, they could envision their own future. It seemed a moment that showed us that a woman can achieve anything.
Still, although there are dozens of women breaking the glass ceiling in various professions, women still lag in many markers of success.
Women still make less than men for the same kind of work. Women in the United States earned 81 cents for every dollar men made in 2020. The gender wage gap widens with people of color. Many hiring managers still hesitate to hire women on the presumption that they will not be as committed to their jobs once they have children.
I was born in Miami and reared in Little Havana in a humble household by a father of Chinese descent and a Hispanic mother. My dad passed away early in our lives, and my mom worked several low-wage jobs to support the family. My brother and I did not have out-of-town summer camps or family vacations to exotic places. We worked summers, among my fondest memories.
Mother did not have a lot of time to volunteer, but she was a good listener, and people gravitated to her for help. Her attitude of gratitude sparked in me the love of public service.
During this month dedicated to women, I reflect on the enormous responsibility Mom took on when she was left alone to raise two small children. We had no nannies, afterschool ballet classes, baseball games or abuelitas to give a helping hand. But what we had, we shared abundantly. That was her mantra: “Give with gratitude because you have been blessed with the ability to provide.”
As I look back on my childhood, then fast-forward to today, where I am the CEO of an organization that leads the industry nationally and internationally, I am filled with gratitude and a profound sense of responsibility. A female leader carries upon her shoulders the obligation of being a model to other women to pursue their dreams and become stewards of their own lives.
When the COVID pandemic began, I had been chief executive officer of the Miami Parking Authority only eight days — the first woman to lead the agency in its 60 years of existence. At the outset the pandemic, I was overtaken by a renewed spirit of service.
With the city of Miami sheltering in place by executive order, I took action to stop issuing parking citations. I knew that our community was vulnerable and that was one of the ways the Parking Authority could help.
From that moment on, the Authority, through a wide range of operational and marketing initiatives, has given more than $1 million in in-kind, onstreet parking to restaurants and customers in Miami.
Intuitively, I knew we were doing what was right. This is a time like no other in our lifetime and it was the moment to act, to serve, to give. And that is what we did.
I drew my inspiration from the words of Anne Frank: “No one has ever become poor by giving.”