A message from the hot spot: It’s about vaccines
There’s a message we are hearing every day: Somehow, by June or July, everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.
You will survive, if you live that long.
I understand congressional anger. I hope we all share that anger.
In our civil state, these are the
Holy Temples literally stomping on the Constitution.
But there is only one thing more important than taking the important, symbolic steps of impeaching the president and then trying him in the Senate.
It’s vaccines. The distribution plan has been abysmal here in L.A. County, where vaccines are most desperately needed. The hospitals There are are, more quite and simply, more triage full. tents outside. The hospitals that serve the mostly poor Hispanic and Black populations are getting besieged with very sick people, but so are the ones on the Westside of town and in the val-ley.
The legendary Cedars-Sinai, aka the hospital all the celebrities go to, with good reason, had zero ICU availability at last check. If it did, it would be filled within minutes. A friend of mine ended up having emergency surgery — she is fine — after four hours in the ER. Which was good. They kept her for two nights, sent her home, and she was back at 4 a.m. People who are sick enough to be hospitalized tend to stay for weeks, not days, meaning no relief in sight.
In L.A. County, the infection rate is 20%. If you get in line for a test, there is a 1 in 5 chance you are positive. Another record shattered, worse on one side of town than the other. But even that is a bit deceptive, since almost every one of those houses on the Westside has a Hispanic housekeeper or nanny or elder care aid or handyman who lives in another neighborhood. So, too, for the grocery checkout. Or the deli.
The most alarming thing in the morning news was the story that President-elect Joe Biden is calling out his vaccination team for not moving fast enough. The armed forces will undoubtedly be out, as well they should be, to protect the Constitution and our democracy, and they will be in full force, regardless of what Trump does or does not say. His most recent round of statements is so infuriating that it is hard not to take the bait, hard to let him escape scrutiny for his worst misdeeds.
But there isn’t time.
There isn’t time to convict Trump.
And there isn’t time to waste in getting Americans vaccinated.
If what Americans saw on television two weeks ago was not enough to leave them deeply troubled, and for some it will not be, nothing said on the floor of the House or Senate will be.
There could be no images more vivid than these, and Trump will be forever linked to them, regardless of what Congress does.
The pandemic won’t stop by itself come Jan. 20.
It is literally a life-or-death situation, and we have done the world’s worst job of controlling the pandemic. What is wrong with us?
To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.