The United States has now crossed the threshold of 10 million COVID-19 cases. According to Johns Hopkins University, as of this writing, 10,018,278 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 along with 237,742 deaths.
However, earlier today, came news from Pfizer and BioNTech that their vaccine could be 90% effective based on preliminary data.
While we are a world starved for good news it is important to exercise caution. Public Citizen considers the release of "preliminary and incomplete trial data" to be "terrible science" and that "we should temper our expectations."
But let us for the sake of argument take the position that the data presented by Pfizer and BioNTech is the real deal. Let us say the vaccine will become available on April 1, 2021 (yes, I know April Fools Day). Aside from the time it will take to inoculate the American public, let us also consider that the vaccine would be administered in two doses three weeks apart. Then it will take another two months to determine if the vaccine is actually effective. Best case scenario we wouldn't begin to see results until June 2021.
In the meantime, President Trump remains in office for another 72 days. If we average 125,000 new COVID-19 cases a day between now and time Joe Biden is inaugurated the total number of COVID-19 cases will nearly double to 20 million. Even when Biden assumes office and he approaches the vaccine in a more serious manner and implements stricter mitigation measures it very much remains to be seen if certain states, municipalities and various segments of the population will comply. In other words it might be a long time before we get below 100,000 new cases a day let alone have a vaccine ready for distribution.
So even if the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine works it is going to be a long time before it bears fruit. Until it does, more people are going to get sick and more people are going to die. There might be a silver lining but we are still far from rounding the turn.
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