Light in the Darkness of 2020

Many have noted this dumpster-fire-of-a-year around the globe. It's difficult to keep track of how many pandemics we are experiencing, amidst failure of political leadership in the U.S. government. Still, there is cause for celebration: last week's launch in the UK of coronavirus vaccinations and emergency authorization of the same vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Countries including Russia and China are administering covid-19 vaccines produced in numerous laboratories. Officials across the globe are extolling the public-private partnerships with universities and pharmaceutical companies backed by billions of taxpayer revenue responsible for the historic speed of vaccine development.

Why so much success, so quickly? Although in some locales the spread of the virus has been fueled by culture wars, there is far more agreement on eradicating it through safe science. Cultural conflict has succumbed to the common interest of a healthy global public and economy.

Imagine a similarly collaborative effort among the governmental, private and nonprofit sectors to address the other pandemics – institutional racism, climate change and economic recession! True, most public services are delivered in concert with contractors or grantees, but not on the scale of the covid-19 vaccination campaign.

Delivering covid-19 vaccines shines a beacon of hope on 2021. Public-private partnerships and a cascade of other efforts, from the grassroots to the World Health Organization, should make us feel more confident that our communities and institutions can, together, mediate our deadly socioeconomic diseases.