Source: GoFundMe.com; Associated Press
Jamie Meccia was diagnosed with colon cancer this past September. After surgery and 12 rounds of chemotherapy, Jamie is now on her way to making a full recovery. But she still needs help.
Due to the intensive treatment schedule and the side effects of chemo, Jamie has been out of work for several months and despite her diagnosis, her disability claims continue to be denied. After being out of work for nearly a year, the bills are piling up and her family could use a little help to catch up on some bills while Jamie continues to recover.
For those who do not know Jamie, she is the first person to lend a hand and the last one to ask for help. And right now she and her family need it.
On Dec. 8, 2020, a retired shop clerk in England received the first shot in what would become a global vaccination campaign. Over the next 12 months, more than 4.3 billion people around the world lined up for the vaccines.
This week, nearly 20 million lives were reported to have been saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached.
The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the study.
“Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind,” Watson said. The findings “quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines.”
The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.
The scientists excluded China because of uncertainty around the pandemic’s effect on deaths there and its huge population.
According to the study, published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, an additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met.