Ram's post regarding the potential of a Covid vaccine is a refreshing diversion from forum combat over Covid data and our national response.
In all the denials of the science and medicine it is science and medicine that is now the hope of the world and should have been from the beginning. More importantly, it is wise to consider that one of the vaccine's being considered is the product of international cooperation...Astrazenica and Oxford. And our own country has helped fund this "foreign" research and production to the extent of pre buying 500 million doses. It really does take much more than a village...it's taking international cooperation.
The case for cooperation has been frankly suppressed in the pushing and shoving of partisan politics and the victim has been a reasonable dialogue leading to cogent response planning.
Since our national experience has been a study in what not to do amongst the civilized nations of the world, can we take a breath and examine how some have overcome the politics, listened to the science and established uniform, mandatory guidelines for adults and children, bars and schools?
Consider the examples of Denmark, Finland, Sweden and even Germany, all of whom have regulated national behavior and opened schools while we are shouting at each other here on how to do it. I believe we can learn from their examples and perhaps even borrow some techniques. It will not be simple because these counties are roughly between 10-20 million, are relatively homogenous, and have different forms of government. Yet they seem to be getting it done.
Case in point is the reopening of schools, begun in Denmark and Finland several months ago. The process employed by each did not purely focus on the medicine, but on a more holistic approach which considered individual rights and social inequalities.
I personally believe we can and should open schools much like the Scandinavian examples but it will obviously take careful organization, not an idiocy of throwing school doors open in a free for all and hoping for the best...or shutting them down entirely. There is gold to be found in between.
I strongly recommend the article linked below because it reviews the methods that permitted the countries to open schools in carefully regulated processes, testing carefully what works and what doesn't and then moving on to a gradual wider opening.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/educ...ng-schools-insights-from-denmark-and-finland/
It's time to stop viewing a genuine pandemic through red and blue lenses and start finding solutions that we all can live with...and I really mean live with.
