Nothing sums up America 2020 quite like Floyd’s “I can’t breathe!” Both in his physical experience, to those experiences of disenfranchised groups, to the planet facing climate change, to California's rampaging wildfires, and those who caught COVID-19. Every day more than a 9/11's worth Americans have among their last thoughts, that they can no longer breathe.
There are too many science deniers, which to me is also like a denial of reality. A smartphone is a triumph of science and engineering, of millions of man-hours putting a supercomputer in the palm of your hand, FaceID can find its origins from Einstein's 1921 Nobel prize winning photoelectric effect. STEM is making your Zoom call happen, to getting you an Amazon order. And in a year where science denial seems amplified, it is to science that we look to to find a vaccine.
This is the world without ONE vaccine. It took unprecedented effort to unlock a vaccine, for a virus whose genetic code was sequenced in 3 days, to a mRNA vaccine designed in 2 days, to safety testing that showed 90+% efficacy - which was beyond our wildest dreams, the way forward is now a logistics problem. This is one that is solvable, though it wasn't properly addressed by our leadership, among other failures, but the vaccine is the path to a return to normalcy. It is hope.
