Our Response to COVID-19 Has Been Pretty Good

Yesterday I came across an article about some group or another that was upset about the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. It felt like about the hundredth article I'd read along those lines, and I've finally had it.

Listen up. We were hit by a brand new virus that spread like wildfire throughout the world. Lots of people made lots of mistakes because this was a brand new disaster we were facing. Nevertheless, the actions we took have kept the US death toll down to 0.15% so far, an astonishingly low number. At the same time, pharmaceutical companies employed brand new technology to develop, test, and manufacture hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine within 11 months. Most likely, the entire country (or close enough) will be fully vaccinated within six months even though distribution of the vaccines is wildly complicated thanks to super low temperature storage requirements.

We are living through a damn miracle. But all I ever hear is endless bitching that boils down to whether someone will get a vaccination a week from now vs. four weeks from now. It's stupid not to focus solely on old people first. No, wait, what about essential workers? And what about Black people, who have the highest infection rate? Oh, so now we're going to get all woke about it? I've been trying to get my grandma vaccinated and it took forever! We should be giving people just one dose and not worrying about the second—and everyone at the FDA should be shot for not immediately agreeing about this. Did you know that bus drivers are especially vulnerable to the virus? They should be put at the top of the list. No, teachers should. No, single mothers should. No, poor countries should.

I know this is just human nature, and maybe it's pointless to fight it. But for God's sake, can we stop obsessing over every single thing we think has been unfair, or been done badly, or just gone wrong? Mistakes are part of human nature too. For my money, though, our response to the pandemic—even including all the blunders, all the backtracking, and all the Trump idiocy—has been nothing short of exceptional. If we had managed the Iraq War this well, Iraq would be a fabulous oasis of democracy and economic opportunity blooming in the desert.

UPDATE: I changed the headline from "spectacular" to "pretty good." I admit that "spectacular" was a wee bit too strong.

To add a little more detail, I'd stick to my guns on the vaccine side, which really has been pretty spectacular all the way around. It has suffered from only minor mistakes along the way, mostly of the kind that are inevitable in a big, complex project.

On the general subject of pandemic control, I continue to think we did better than most people think. However, there's no question that we made some serious errors that increased the death toll considerably.

I may write about this again. The reason is that part of my position here came after reading an article in which Lawrence Wright all but said that our pandemic response was the biggest FUBAR in the human history of FUBARs. But his evidence was so laughably weak that it prompted me to write this post.

Plus, of course, the hundredth article in which someone was griping about some group or another being unfairly treated by ignorant and blinkered distribution policies.