India needs urgent help. The US has agreed to send aid, but we need to do even more. Tell your representatives to support COVID vaccine exports and vaccine patent waivers! Also, please support mutual aid funds in India!

The situation:

India has been making and exporting vaccines for many developing countries, and now it’s facing the world’s worst COVID-19 surge.

Over 300,000 new infections are recorded daily in India, and this is most likely an undercount. Hospitals are out of beds and oxygen, and thanks to a deadly new virus variant, younger people are falling seriously ill at an alarming rate.

The United States has just announced that it will:

• Make available raw materials needed to manufacture the Covishield vaccine in India.
• Make available therapeutics, test kits, ventilators, and PPE.
• Pursue options to find oxygen supplies.
• Fund India’s vaccine manufacturer so it can produce 1 billion vaccines by the end of 2022.
• Deploy a team of CDC public health advisors.

This is an important first step, but we can and must do more:  

• The US is currently sitting on nearly 40 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine—not authorized for use in America, but already in use in India. We need to release these doses to India and other countries presently experiencing surges of COVID-19. UPDATE: THE WHITE HOUSE HAS COMMITTED TO DOING THIS, BUT WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THEY FOLLOW THROUGH.
• Epidemiologists are predicting we might have less than a year before mutations render the current vaccines ineffective. The only way to prevent this is to further ramp up global vaccine production. The drug industry is currently lobbying against a proposed temporary intellectual property waiver that would allow this to happen. We need to support this waiver. This is the ONLY WAY to bring this pandemic under control worldwide.

The crisis in India is terrible, and it’s also a stark vision of what the next few years will hold for countries around the world if we don’t act now.

Here’s how you can help:

Call your representatives and tell them to support:

• Lifting export restrictions on vaccines.
• The intellectual property waiver that’ll allow cheap vaccines for everyone.
• Continued emergency aid in the form of oxygen, anti-virals, and medical supplies.

Who to call, and how:

Want more information about this situation? Read these articles and opinion pieces:

• Carnegie India: “To Friends in the United States: Facilitate Global Vaccine Manufacturing”
• Bloomberg: “Biden Needs to Come to India’s Aid Now”
• NYTimes: OpEd by the director general of the WHO about why rich countries must vaccinate the world in order to end the pandemic

• The Intercept: “Over 100 Drug Lobbyists Working to Block Generic COVID-19 Vaccines”

Already called? 

You can also help by contributing to fundraisers supporting folks on the ground in India. Please refer to this list.

For Indian Americans / South Asian Americans, and Indians living in the USA: Call the four Indian American members of Congress

There are four Indian American members of the House of Representatives. This crisis is personal for them, too—and they’re in a unique position to do something about it. Let’s call as many of them as we can and get them to push the Biden Administration to take further action.

If you can’t get through, you can also leave a voicemail. Use the numbers and the script below:  

Phone numbers:

(note: Raja Krishnamoorthi has just tweeted his support for releasing the unused AstraZeneca supplies. If you call his office, thank him for doing that and urge him to support vaccine IP waivers)

Script:

Dear [[Member of Congress]], I am an [[Indian American / South Asian American / Indian resident of the United States]]. Like you, I have family and friends in India directly affected by the terrible COVID-19 surge there. It is heartening to see the Biden Administration taking action, but we need to go further.

I am calling on you to urge President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris to quickly export our surplus vaccine stocks. We are sitting on millions of AstraZeneca doses that could be life-saving for people in India. We should also continue to send emergency aid to India in the form of oxygen, anti-virals, and other medical supplies.

I am also calling on you to join the senators who sent a letter to President Biden urging him to waive intellectual property rules so that COVID-19 vaccines can be manufactured generically worldwide. This is the only way to ramp up global production quickly enough to prevent COVID-19 from becoming endemic and stopping vaccine-resistant variants from emerging. If we don’t do this, all our vaccination efforts will be for nothing.

India has done its part in the global fight against COVID-19. Now, we must do our part—for India and the rest of the world.

Thank you.

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Done? Thank you for calling them! You can also call your own member of congress using the instructions on the next page to add even more pressure!

For everyone: Call your member of Congress

Please use this tool to find your representative using your zip code. Let’s call as many of them as we can and get them to push the Biden Administration to take further action. If you can’t get through, you can also leave a voicemail. Use the script below:

Script:

Dear [[Member of Congress]], I am a constituent, living in [[district / city]]. I am horrified by the terrible COVID-19 surge in India. While it is heartening to see the Biden Administration taking action, we need to go further.

I am calling on you to urge the White House to quickly export our surplus vaccine stocks. We are sitting on millions of AstraZeneca doses that could be life-saving for people in India. We should also continue to send emergency aid to India in the form of oxygen, anti-virals, and other medical supplies.

I am also calling on you to join the senators who sent a letter to President Biden urging him to waive intellectual property rules so that COVID-19 vaccines can be manufactured generically worldwide. This is the only way to ramp up global production quickly enough to prevent COVID-19 from becoming endemic and stopping vaccine-resistant variants from emerging. If we don’t do this, all our vaccination efforts will be for nothing.

India has done its part in the global fight against COVID-19. Now, we must do our part—for India and the rest of the world.

Thank you.

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Done? Thank you for calling! Want to do even more? Use the below numbers and script to call the office of Katherine Tai, the United States Trade Representative, and urge her to support waiving intellectual property rules on COVID vaccines.  

Call the Office of the United States Trade Representative

USTR general number: 202-395-2870

USTR ambassador’s office: 202-395-9477

UPDATE: The USTR’s office is not generally public-facing and is proving difficult to contact. We will update with a better way to contact them.

Dear Ambassador Katherine Tai,

My name is [[name]] and I’m calling from [[City, State]]. I am horrified by the terrible COVID-19 surge in India and its broader implications for ending the pandemic. I am heartened by the Biden administration’s actions, but these actions need to go further.

As your office’s mission states, the goal of US trade policy is to “create new opportunities and higher living standards for families, farmers, manufacturers, workers, consumers, and businesses.”

The present situation, with export restrictions on vaccines and vaccine intellectual property rules runs entirely counter to this mission. If we do not rapidly vaccinate the entire planet, hundreds of millions of people will suffer and new vaccine-resistant variants will likely emerge. This will impact people’s lives and the economies of many countries, including our own.

As you yourself said last week, the gaping divide between developed and developing countries' access to medicines, seen previously during the AIDS crisis, is "completely unacceptable".

I am calling on you to urge President Biden to waive intellectual property rules so that COVID-19 vaccines can be manufactured generically worldwide. This is the only way to end the pandemic, and ensure a bright, prosperous future for us all.

India has done its part in the global fight against COVID-19 by being a producer of much of the world’s vaccines. Now, we must do our part.

Thank you.

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Done? Thank you so much! Please help us get the word out by sharing this document on social media, and with your friends and family. You should also contribute to urgent fundraisers supporting folks on the ground in India. Please refer to this list.

Here are some write-ups you can use to share this document with friends, family, and on social media. You’ll find the document link at the end: