As winter descends on a country ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, life unfolds on a split screen. On one side, the picture is bleak: Every 30 seconds, another American dies of COVID-19. The number of people infected or killed in the United States keeps outstripping the common analogies we use—a hurricane, a daily 9/11 attack, a tsunami—to express the magnitude of our national catastrophes. On Wednesday, CDC Director Robert Redfield said that the death count could reach nearly 450,000 Americans by February.
On the other side of the screen, though, the news is startling: The pandemic is beginning to end. On Wednesday, the United Kingdom granted emergency authorization for the widespread use of the first vaccines, and in the United States, the FDA is expected to do the same soon. A day earlier, the CDC finalized recommendations that would direct the first shots to health-care workers and seniors in long-term-care facilities On Friday, states submitted their requests for vaccine doses based on the CDC’s criteria. State officials have been finalizing their plans for the vaccine’s so-called last mile—that is, how it gets from distribution sites into Americans’ arms. Some people will be vaccinated very soon, and most by the summer or fall of 2021.
