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Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today on two very important subjects. The first is about an issue that is of vital importance for the United States across economic, security, and humanitarian spheres, and that is vaccinating the world's population.

I think we all have learned in a very hard, hard way the last 2 years that the coronavirus does not respect international borders. It started in China. It came to America. It went all over the world.

Experts have been warning for months that if the virus continues to spread in other parts of the world, new variants could continue to emerge, just as we are emerging and seeing each other again and going to family gatherings and having people and tour groups come into the Capitol. We cannot let our guard down.

American companies have worked with the world to create the most effective vaccines in existence. We put our faith in science, and now we have an incredible vaccine that we can be proud of. And as we continue to ensure that Americans get their shots and their boosters, we know that ending this pandemic is going to require a sustained, multinational approach to getting these lifesaving shots to the rest of the world.

This makes sense from a humanitarian perspective, it makes sense from an economic perspective, and it is just common sense, because we can't let this happen again, and we certainly can't put our heads in the sand and pretend that, just because it is going on in another continent or across the ocean, it won't affect us.

For those in America who have lost loved ones, that couldn't even say goodbye to their loved ones, because they were in a hospital, holding the hand of a nurse, and all they could do was see them in the hospital bed over a Zoom screen or on an iPad, we can't let any of that happen again. And that means that we not only do our work at home and get the vaccines out and the leadership that we have seen out of the White House on that front, but it is also about leading in the world.

The United States has long been a leader in global health programs. President George W. Bush established PEPFAR, which stands for President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. That program saved over 20 million lives and prevented millions of infections. It was a bipartisan effort that was led by President Bush.

The United States has also connected global towns and villages with clean water, thought to prevent malaria, and led efforts to end smallpox and polio around the world. This is our legacy, but we can't rest on our success and the leadership from the past. We have to lead now.

At this point, only about 56 percent of the world's population is fully vaccinated. In nations around the world, the individual rate is much lower. In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, only 5 percent of people are fully vaccinated. Few people would disagree with the assessment that new variants will continue to form--ask Dr. Fauci--as long as much of the world remains unvaccinated, and that makes every nation vulnerable, including ours.

And we can do this at such a relatively small cost to what the gain will be--the gain in saving lives abroad and in America, the gain in keeping a stable economy around the world, because you know we export to the world, and we know we are interconnected with the world.

So when it comes to beating this virus, we have to recognize that our destiny is linked with the rest of the world. We can't give up this fight. Now is not the time to cut corners. We have suffered enough through this virus, and we have the needed tools to vaccinate a global population. We have the vaccine. We just have to get it to the people that need it.

I will keep fighting to get the resources to get this done. We will work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle until we get this done and vaccinate the world.

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