Now that Thanksgiving is over, if you did not behave yourself with masks and, most important, social distancing, I hope at least you were fortunate. The near-certainty that we can get a vaccine in us by Christmas 2021 should not fool us into thinking its effects will be retroactive, and we cannot let up now.
Per Wednesday’s New York Times, there are now six
vaccines “approved for early or limited use,” with 55 being tested on
humans. Although none yet are “approved
for full use,” that is outstanding news.
Per the Times, the current American daily infection rate, with as
of Tuesday an all-time-high 174,270 7-day average, is leveling off. However, the corresponding death rate, which lags
new cases, is now 1,621, the highest it has been for over six months. The national map, with the darkest red-purple
counties with over 250 new cases every day per 100,000 population, looked, as
of Wednesday, as follows:
All this points up the need to arrive alive for the vaccines
when we can get them.
We have plenty of other useful information. Per Andrew Taylor in the October 8th
USA Today, “COVID-19 relief pushes U.S. budget deficit to a record $3.1T.” That’s T as in “trillion,” for a total of
$3,100,000,000,000, or a one-year shortfall of $9,375 per American. Still we have no overall choice, though not
all of that was due to pandemic relief.
Although internal quarantine requirements make the vast
majority of travel unfeasible even if benign, it is still good to know, as this
situation changes, that “Amid airline industry slump, new study shows flying
may actually be safer than grocery shopping, indoor dining” (Daniella Genovese,
Fox Business, October 29th).
Indeed, I have never perceived that airlines have been lax here.
As always, “The Latest Vaccine News Doesn’t Tell the Full
Story” (Spencer Bokat-Lindell, The New York Times, November 17th). Further information is that clinical success
for both frontrunners Pfizer and Moderna have well exceeded effectiveness
expectations, and that both use “genetic vaccine technology, which has been in
development for 30 years,” which both companies may have been almost forced to
try with the pandemic’s circumstances.
For another wrap-up from probably the best source, we have USA
Today’s November 18th “In coronavirus war, hang on, help is on
the way with COVID-19 vaccine: Anthony
Fauci Q&A.” This interview, which
printed out to eight pages, hit on “the most important thing for people to do
between now and when the cavalry arrives” (Fauci: “Hang on and implement the public health
measures,” which are “uniform wearing of masks; physical distance; avoiding
congregate settings, particularly indoors; trying to do things, when the
weather allows, outdoors more than indoors; and washing hands,” all of which
are more important than being truly locked down); that we need “consistency of
message”; that, “if the first doses of
vaccine are available for front-line workers in December and January” the rest
of us can expect to get them sometime between April and July; that it will be effective about one week
after the second of the two required doses; and overall, as Fauci put it
himself, “Please, folks, hang on to the extent that we can, because help is on
the way with a vaccine,” and “this is not going to be an indefinite
situation. It will change, and it will
end.” Heartening if hardly easy.
Much of the same information was in Sarah Zhang’s “The End
of the Pandemic is Now in Sight,” published by The Atlantic on the same
day. Other general insights were that what
broke the pandemic’s back was that “the scientific uncertainty at the heart of
COVID-19 vaccines is resolved,” that “the invention of vaccines against a virus
identified only 10 months ago is an extraordinary scientific achievement”
making them “the fastest vaccines ever developed, by a margin of years,” that “several
more COVID-19 vaccines may soon cross the finish line,” that “no one on Earth,
until last week, knew whether” this type of vaccine would actually work in
humans, and that, maybe more than anything else, “we were lucky.” In conclusion, “every infection we prevent
now – through masking and social distancing – is an infection that can,
eventually, be prevented forever through vaccines.”
We can speculate what employment changes will remain after
the coronavirus is gone, but the chief economist and others at Glassdoor, “the
job posting and employee review site,” have put together projections that
“These 10 jobs could disappear or decline because of COVID-19” (Paul Davidson, USA
Today, November 19th). Openings
for each decreased from 25% to 69% from October 2019 to October 2020, and these
fields were chosen for expected future weakness as well, “for several years, if
not longer.” The positions are chef,
executive assistant, receptionist, accounts payable specialist, HR generalist,
product demonstrator, brand ambassador, professor, event coordinator, and
architect. Why the last one? Because there could be a great drop in the
number of new office buildings, which architects design. There are insights into the other nine as
well. So, hang on, wear that mask, stay
six feet away, and prepare for some big celebrations late next year – we will
have them.