@Background Pony #C71C
@MagpulPony
Well, I suspected something like that. Edit: And I wish the Americans all the best in this regard from the bottom of my heart. Although I am not always the biggest fan of US foreign policy (cough, anyone who knows me knows that’s an understatement), I believe that after all the turmoil of the last few months, the American people can take some positive news. God bless America.
@Topic
The reason why I ask is the following: In Germany, we are kept up to date on the latest developments each and every hour. Not only regarding the development of a vaccine, but also regarding the ongoing problems, new infections, countermeasures, and so on. A lot of things are very frustrating, especially because people are
very divided on this issue.
The extremists and their political supporters on the right wing suspect the German government of being part of some sinister conspiracy. Yesterday Chancellor Merkel’s speech was constantly interrupted by right wing members of parliament (in style of Donald Trumps vs. Biden). She spoke of a dramatic situation and an enormous challenge that Germany could only face together. The AfD literally said that the government was conducting a kind of propaganda like a war cabinet and was keeping Germany under martial law like an occupying power.
So far so
good. What does this have to do with a vaccine?
Merkel’s cabinet is currently ruling past the local parliaments. Like the USA, Germany is a federal state, which means that in principle the individual countries decide for themselves how best to face the corona virus. But since Chancellor Merkel knows that the minister-presidents (comparable to the US governors) and three-quarters of the German population, who support her corona policy, are behind her, there is no reason for concern here right now. One can complain about it, one should in a democracy, too, but on the whole the Germans stand by Frau Merkel, even if everyone is aware of the cruel situation for artists, musicians, hotels, bars, restaurants and others. Here one can only hope that these people can be helped as soon as possible with financial support. Basically all Germans are in favour of this.
But, and this is the crux of the matter, even
if a reliable vaccine exists, it will not be available until months later, because such a sensitive product generally requires state-of-the-art cooling facilities to be able to administering this to everyone. Credible medical sources have long since confirmed this. In other words, even if there is a vaccine, it is not immediately distributed everywhere.
Of course I can’t follow everything on the internet or in the media, but has this ever been openly discussed outside my German sources? I always have the impression that Putin, Trump and Co. are constantly announcing some kind of medical miracle, without pointing out that it is much more complex to make this work for everyone. A vaccination is, as far as I have understood, not possible before 2022. This could mean that we will still be dealing with the corona virus for at least the next year. I can’t even imagine what this means for the world economy, the mood of the population, the rise of the Corona opponents, and so on.
Basically, I’m not really a pessimist. I always hope that things will actually turn out better than expected. Unfortunately, the number of newly infected people in this second wave and the inability of many governments to prevent this, despite clear warnings against it, have somehow made me a sceptic.
You can take the whole thing with a certain black humor, of course. How stupid modern humanity behaves in
the face of such a threat, although one should know better. I personally see the corona virus, apart from its alleged lethality (and this as someone who belongs to the risk group), above all as a threat to Western democratic stability. Apparently, the virus doesn’t kill stupid people. That’s too bad. Then we could at least have profited from it (
cough). But it gives certain forces in society a weapon in their hands that is clearly directed against democracy. And that worries me.
Conclusion: We should not believe in the miraculous effect of any vaccine as long as it is not clear how it should be given to all people in the respective nation. If German medical specialists are rightly concerned about this, shouldn’t we all rather not worry in some way? Or am I simply too speculative here and should I rather continue to hope for the best for everyone? I, and I say this in all honesty, am really anything but sure at the moment. And I hate not being sure of anything. This goes against my very optimistic nature. ;-)
[And as always, I apologize for my personal inability to be brief and not to create walls of text. But I don’t think I’d be me if it wasn’t different. I hope you can forgive me for this.] ;-D
