Two viruses, different vaccines

 Yesterday, 11 December 2020, will probably be remembered in history as one of those tectonic shifts. Two events made the news: the FDA issues emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for Covid-19 and the Supreme Court refused to hear the nonsensical suit brought by Texas against four other states (Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) to overturn the presidential election and declare Donald Trump the winner. Both represent progress. Both are incomplete answers.

First, the vaccine news. After a massive Phase 3 clinical trial and review by the FDA and its advisory panel, the Pfizer-BionTech mRNA vaccine was given the green light for distribution and states will begin vaccinating people next week. General Perna, the Army four-star charged with supervising logistics ensuring the vaccine moves smoothly and safely from manufacturing plants to the states, has compared this job to D-Day in its scope. While historians may quibble with that comparison, there certainly has been nothing of similar size in recent history. In fact, it probably is worth reading about Operation Neptune as a comparison to what we will see. Many pieces have to fall in place for Covid-19 vaccine to successfully get into the arms of people. As with D-Day, there will be bumps and hiccups; I advise all of us not to cling to the best case scenario because I doubt that this will occur. Pfizer already indicated it would ship only half of what it predicted it would in the remainder of 2020 due to supply chain problems. Apparently Pfizer offered more vaccine to the Trump administration over the summer which were declined. Hopes for quick approval of other vaccines, such as the AstraZeneca-Oxford product, were dashed when problems with their trial data surfaced. None of this is fatal to the process but it will result in delays.  Even factors such as glass for making enough vials, production of dry ice, and adequate airlift are among the headaches for General Perna’s logisticians. Again, this is not reason to worry but reason to be pragmatic. We have endured much since this pandemic broke. Now we must be patient a while longer while the vaccine makes its way to our arms. As Sarah Zhang wrote in The Atlantic, the next six months will be vaccine purgatory. It will end. While we wait for the vaccine, the public health measures we have used must continue to be strictly applied: masks, physical distancing, hand hygiene. The swiss cheese model works if we apply it. I sit here recalling my mother’s words to me when I was a child: Patience is a virtue well rewarded. Mom, I appreciate your hearing that in my head now.

There are 38 days and 16 hours as I type this to Inauguration Day. This was not a normal election. Until this year, we had presidents who adhered now only to law but to small-d democratic norms. One of those norms was conceding defeat in an election. Donald Trump has displayed his tinpot authoritarianism by not conceding his overwhelming loss to Joe Biden. Instead, he has raged for more than a month, spouting conspiracy theories about how the Democrats stole the election and he is a victim of fraud (in passing, saying that he is a victim of fraud is rich, considering what he has pulled off over his entire lifetime). He and his cabal have filed enough lawsuits to paper over the Mojave Desert with claims of election fraud, ballot stuffing, and voting machines rigged by the late Hugo Chavez. In over 55 lawsuits filed in state and federal court, there was a single technical victory by the lunatic Trump legal team in Pennsylvania over about 200 votes -- not enough to be meaningful. 

Until this election, Americans in general knew that elections meant a winner and a loser. The loser conceded, an act of graciousness but also a norm that meant everyone agreed that elections have meaning in a democracy. Now Trump spreads poison and that poison will likely continue to corrode the system long after he leaves office. Pippa Norris sketches out the danger here and the potential to bring down American democracy. The Republicans have chosen to be the anti-democracy party. We cannot allow this to happen and we must remember the names of all of the elected Republicans who have violated their oath to uphold the Constitution. For future reference, Ruth Marcus has published the names of the Attorneys General and Congressmen who decided sedition was their metier, not patriotism. Keep the list for the future -- they must be condemned at every turn and all Americans reminded of their treachery.

We are in the midst of two dangerous infections. One is Covid-19, for which we have control measures and a vaccine. We know more will die as a result of Trump and his repugnant lies and sociopathy. The other is the virus of anti-democracy and once again Trump and his cult (once known as the Republican Party), through their odious mendacity and lust for power. This virus requires an alert and informed electorate that votes and is not encumbered by voting suppression and gerrymandering. That is a harder vaccine to devise because it requires work on the part of every citizen every day. I don’t think this is unattainable. It is too easy to imagine Trump’s malign influence going on and on but I think that is wrong. We forget that things do change and that what we see now is likely to change in the future. A real question is how much hold will Donald Trump have on his cult as time passes. As Trump himself loves to say, “We’ll see.” Covid-19 will end. Let’s work to end Trumpism too.