Better days ahead

The Thermo Scientific RLE60086 is quite a little honey in refrigerators. It’s sleek and space-saving with a 28.8 cubic foot capacity, weighing only 245 pounds. You might not want the ultra-cold freezer (capable of blasting materials to minus 80 degrees Celsius) in your home kitchen—with a list price over $22,000, it’s more than 10 times the price of a top-of-the-line Maytag—but hospitals are in the buying mood.

The reason? They need these deepdeep freezers to handle doses of coronavirus vaccines that require ultra-low temperature storage. The fact that labs are already stocking up on such freezers is one of the most concrete signs yet that the covid-19 vaccine is on the way, perhaps as early as late December, on an emergency basis, and next spring for most Americans.

That should warm the hearts of Americans who are understandably not exactly feeling chill about the return of pandemic-related restrictions.

It’s clear that the pandemic is getting worse again. That’s not surprising. As many experts had predicted, cooler temperatures mean people are more engaged in indoor close-quarter activities; an uptick in transmission was inevitable. The only real question now is whether a public so frustrated and tired, so weary of dealing with the deadly virus and having their lives disrupted these last eight months, is in the mood to comply.

This is not the time to let our collective guard down. We rely on each other to do our best and protect each other. Now may be the winter of our discontent, but warmer, more glorious days are ahead: Help is on the way.