Vaccines Just in Time

 

Vaccines Just in Time

 It appears as if President Donald Trump’s “Warp Speed” Covid-19 vaccine efforts will save countless thousands, or even millions, of lives, by being available nine months after getting started. Of course, the way our politics and media work, the plagiarist, Joe Biden, will no doubt find a way to take credit for this effort, and claim it as his own.

 Crooked politicians and the biased leftist media will have handed Biden an illegal presidency by unconstitutionally changing the election rules in several swing states, and deliberately suppressing deleterious news about the Bidens that would have swayed voters and changed the election.  Does anyone doubt that these same forces wouldn’t use similar nefarious means to claim that the vaccines were developed under their, and Biden’s aegis, and make Biden the hero?

 First the Pfizer, and next the Moderna vaccines, have been approved by the FDA just in time, at the height of a winter peak in Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. and world-wide.  Upwards of six more vaccines are in final trials, and close to approval.

 The genius of Trump’s approach in “Warp Speed”, is that literally millions of doses of all of the vaccines have been produced and are ready for distribution, prior to, and waiting for, stage 3 trials and FDA approval.  As with the Pfizer vaccine, shipments of mass quantities begin the same day the vaccine is approved.  Extrapolating from past government bureaucracies, we would be still waiting for approvals and production two years, or more, from now, while the virus ravaged the world and killed millions. 

 The attached charts show where we are, insofar as seven day rolling averages for deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S, and in the world.  Obviously, the alarms about the virus that the media report this winter are true.  What is wrong about the political responses to the virus is that shutdowns are used by democrat politicians to mitigate the virus, to the other ruinous detriments of their constituents.  This includes physically closing schools and paying NEA union members, even though schools have been shown not to be spreaders of the virus.

 

 

 Trump’s (and Pence’s) hardnosed and unrelenting pursuit of the government agencies, the pharma industry, the commercial carriers and the military to make effective vaccines a reality within nine months, is a study in management technique and persistence in face of political opposition and constant denigration.  Only a Trump type, from the Manhattan real estate wars, could have accomplished such a feat.  Kudos to him for saving millions of lives.

 There does not seem to be conclusive evidence of the efficacy of shutdowns.  Population centers versus rural areas seem to be pertinent.  Democrat run California, which is almost fully shutdown, has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the country, but its mortality rate is relatively low. Republican run Texas and Florida, which are not shutdown have a lower number of cases, but higher mortality rates.  New York State, New Jersey and Massachusetts, which are partially shutdown, have very high mortality rates, but these are skewed by bad early decisions regarding nursing homes in NY and NJ, and a veteran’s home in MA.

 Of course, Covid-19 mortality rates are not the whole story and tend to be inflated, in any case.  The societal consequences of shutdowns are massive.  Alcoholism, drug addiction, broken homes, crime, shattered businesses, and much, much, more. Truly, the cure is worse than the disease.

 The advent of the vaccine is not a panacea.  The “experts” tell us that we need to be at least 70% vaccinated to attain “herd immunity”.  In the meantime, masks are recommended in enclosed spaces, as well as social distancing washing our hands, and all the other trappings of the pandemic.  Since Pew Research reports that only some 52% of Americans are positive about taking the vaccine, we’ll need to increase this to reach herd immunity.  Our irresponsible politicians, who have politicized vaccine development and cast doubt about the efficacy and safety of the vaccines has brought this number down from 72% last May to 52% now.

 In the meantime, many of us stand ready, with arms exposed, to go through the vaccination sequence and develop the antibodies necessary to resist the Covid-19 virus.

Ray Gruszecki

December 18, 2020