50% of teachers in K-12
are under 41 years old. They're not high risk. And 82% are under
55. For the few high-risk teachers, I think by now they know how to
isolate themselves. If that's not enough, then frankly those high-risk teachers
can stay home and teach from a distance. You don't lockdown the children
because you are personally afraid.
The
United States is one of the few countries in the world where plasma donors are
paid and it is responsible for 70% of the global supply of plasma. If you add
in the other countries that allow donors to be paid, including Germany,
Austria, Hungary, and Czechia, the paid-donor countries account for nearly 90%
of the total supply.
Countries
that follow the WHOs guidance to rely exclusively on voluntary, unpaid donors
all have shortages of plasma (hmmm…what’s the WHOs track record like?) So what do these
countries do? Import plasma from the paid-donor countries. The United Kingdom,
Australia, New Zealand and some Canadian provinces, for example, prohibit paid
donors and they import a majority of their plasma from paid donor countries.
(See chart at right).
As Nobel
prize winner Al Roth puts it, in his gentle way:
I find confusing the
position of some countries that compensating domestic plasma donors is immoral,
but filling the resulting shortage by purchasing plasma from the US is ok.
The UK,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada can afford their moral hypocrisy but their
decision to forbid paid-donors reduces the world supply of plasma driving up
the price and harming people in poorer countries.
