Next steps necessary after vaccine rollout

Here’s pretty much the first good news in the past nine months of the pandemic: Front-line health care workers are getting vaccinated.

These include nurses and doctors and other critical staffers at hospitals in local counties. Early reports are few, if any, serious reactions to the injections.

And more good news: The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday and the first roll outs of that vaccine were expected yesterday.

Vaccine advisors for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are now recommending the next two priority groups —seniors over the age of 74, essential workers, and people with underlying health conditions — to receive vaccines after healthcare workers and residents of longterm care facilities.

On Sunday, Congress finally came together with a $900 billion stimulus package that includes $600 stimulus checks to every taxpayer with income less than $75,000 in 2019, along with $300 in weekly unemployment benefits for 11 weeks, and aid for small businesses, the airline industry, more money for vaccine distribution, and other measures.

But, and there’s always a “but” in 2020 pandemic-related news, will this spending be enough? Considering the job losses and business closings, this aid, while welcome, will not go that far in our high-costof-living county. The best hope is that the incoming Biden administration, still a month away from an arrival approaching at a glacial pace, vows more help will be forthcoming when they occupy the White House.

Essential next steps mean planning by both the federal and state government about how to reopen the economy, which will include how to provide proof of immunity among people who are vaccinated or who have recovered from the virus.

We’re also expecting that despite the continuing rancor and absence of leadership in the federal government, that the vaccine rollouts will be managed better than initially as health officials in California and at least a dozen other states complained they were receiving fewer of the vaccines than expected.

Meanwhile, Great Britain is facing a new crisis as a fastspreading new strain of the virus forced a strict lockdown across England, and as France and Germany Sunday restricted travel from Britain. While current information suggests that the new variant doesn’t have any impact on the vaccines being rolled out, health experts say that over time, as more mutations occur, as they always do with viruses, vaccines may need to be altered.

Federal projections say there will be enough vaccine to vaccinate 20 million people this month, 30 million in January, and 50 million in February. But the reality for most of us is that widespread vaccinations won’t be available until spring – probably April of May, say health experts.

Spring is months off, and the death toll continues to mount. That means in California and across the nation, the priority has to be saving as many lives as possible.

As we noted last week, the current holiday season is a critical juncture, with projections that tens of thousands, or more, lives could be lost as many Americans continue to ignore guidelines for preventing virus transmission. The inescapable reality, as airports are again seeing millions of travelers this week, is that many, if not most, people in this country are sick and tired of restrictions and dire warnings from public officials.

Weariness nothwithstanding, stay-at-home restrictions are in place for our county and must be followed. That means non-essential trips are out. Indoor church services are canceled. Shopping is limited. And large gatherings with others who are not in your immediate family should be avoided.

For all this, with two vaccines approved and more in the pipeline, there is an end in sight, even if Jan. 1, 2021, won’t by some calendar and cosmic sleight of hand somehow end the brutal darkness of 2020.

We believe the vaccines will allow us to return, if slowly, to the lives we knew last holiday season. But until then, we all have to do our part to keep the most vulnerable among us safe.