“A Day That Settled an Election and Brought Hope for Defeating a Pandemic”, The New York Times
By Peter Baker, Dec. 15, 2020
“I honestly can’t recall two independent events of such extreme importance occurring on the same day,” said one historian. “A good day,” said another.
WASHINGTON — When future historians close the books on the misery of 2020, a grueling year of disease, death, racial strife, street violence, economic collapse and political discord the likes of which have not been seen in the United States in generations, they may look back on Monday, Dec. 14, as a pivotal juncture.
It was on that day that Americans began rolling up their sleeves for a vaccine produced in record time to defeat a virus even as the death toll crossed 300,000. And it was on that day that members of the Electoral College gathered in each of the 50 states to ratify the end of the most polarized election in more than a century.
None of that erases the enormous damage of the past 12 months, nor does it mean there will not be pain and protest to come. Many Americans will get sick and die in the months before the vaccine is universally available. Many Americans will remain aggrieved by the result of an election they wish had gone the other way. It is still an era of hardship and division. But after so much uncertainty, after so much doubt, the way forward appears clearer at least in two major respects.
“It is a cosmic convergence,” said Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a leading Republican election lawyer who has been critical of President Trump’s efforts to overturn the vote that he lost. “And what’s good about both of the events occurring on the same day is it really can provide a turning point for a nation that really wants a turning point.”
The day played out in a remarkable fashion as television viewers watched images of health care workers receiving lifesaving injections juxtaposed with live shots from state capitals around the country showing electors casting votes formally confirming the victory of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris.
It was the definitiveness of both developments that stood out after months of political, medical and economic turmoil: At last, Americans can look ahead to the day when they will be immunized from the Covid-19 virus even if takes until spring. And now they know despite all the postelection noise from the White House and its allies who will be president on Jan. 20.
“I honestly can’t recall two independent events of such extreme importance occurring on the same day,” said David Oshinsky, a professor of medicine at New York University’s Langone Health and a historian who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the development of the polio vaccine that eliminated a scourge of the 20th century.
He said it was as if one were to combine the seminal election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson that set the precedent for presidential contests with the day that President Dwight D. Eisenhower thanked Dr. Jonas Salk for developing the polio vaccine. “In our bitterly divided country, Dec. 14, 2020, should remind us of who we are and what we are capable of,” Dr. Oshinsky said.
For Mr. Trump, the dean of denial who has refused to accept either the election results or the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, the clarity of Dec. 14 was not entirely welcome. He had reason to celebrate the debut of the vaccine, which he made a top priority and will surely count as a major part of his legacy even though he otherwise has played down the threat of the virus and undercut public health efforts to stem the outbreak through masks and social distancing. “First Vaccine administered,” he wrote on Twitter. “Congratulations USA! Congratulations WORLD!”
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Covid-19 Vaccines ›
Answers to Your Vaccine Questions
With distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:
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- If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.
- When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated? Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.
- If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. Here’s why. The coronavirus vaccines are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill. But what’s not clear is whether it’s possible for the virus to bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others — even as antibodies elsewhere in the body have mobilized to prevent the vaccinated person from getting sick. The vaccine clinical trials were designed to determine whether vaccinated people are protected from illness — not to find out whether they could still spread the coronavirus. Based on studies of flu vaccine and even patients infected with Covid-19, researchers have reason to be hopeful that vaccinated people won’t spread the virus, but more research is needed. In the meantime, everyone — even vaccinated people — will need to think of themselves as possible silent spreaders and keep wearing a mask. Read more here.
- Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection into your arm won’t feel different than any other vaccine, but the rate of short-lived side effects does appear higher than a flu shot. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. The side effects, which can resemble the symptoms of Covid-19, last about a day and appear more likely after the second dose. Early reports from vaccine trials suggest some people might need to take a day off from work because they feel lousy after receiving the second dose. In the Pfizer study, about half developed fatigue. Other side effects occurred in at least 25 to 33 percent of patients, sometimes more, including headaches, chills and muscle pain. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign that your own immune system is mounting a potent response to the vaccine that will provide long-lasting immunity.
- Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.
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But he was not so ready to congratulate Mr. Biden, or accept the verdict of the Electoral College, even though it is vested by the Constitution with the power to determine the next president by majority vote. Mr. Trump remained out of sight all day, offered no concession and continued to pump out false claims of fraud supposedly so prevalent that it would justify overturning the will of the people.
Indeed, in what came across as an effort to distract attention from his loss in the Electoral College, Mr. Trump just minutes after California’s electors meeting in Sacramento put Mr. Biden over the top abruptly announced the departure of Attorney General William P. Barr, who had angered the president by refuting his fantastical assertions about widespread election corruption.
With that process complete, Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept defeat became little more than railing against the weather. There may be more futile lawsuits filed to go with the dozens that have already been dismissed all the way up to the Supreme Court, and some of his allies may object when Electoral College votes are officially counted by Congress on Jan. 6, but none of that will change the outcome.
Never in American history has a majority vote by the Electoral College been reversed. Like it or not, Mr. Biden will be sworn in 37 days from now.
“This day feels like a turning point because in both cases we have reality breaking through — a legally mandated deadline to end the election cycle being met in an orderly way and a carefully reviewed and tested vaccine being brought into general use,” said Yuval Levin, the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
“In both cases,” he added, “institutionalism and professionalism have made it through the storm and are functioning under pressure. It’s a relief, and also an indication of what we need more of in the years to come to recover our balance as a society.”
Not everyone was quite ready to write off the tumult of 2020, which has been marked by the deadliest pandemic in a century, the most cataclysmic economic collapse since the Great Depression, the worst racial strife since the civil rights era and the most divisive and contested aftermath to an election since shortly after the Civil War. Some were not sure a corner had really been turned.
“It’s a good day,” said Jill Lepore, the prominent Harvard scholar who has written sweeping books on American history. “But these last years, it has often felt as though the country is falling down an empty well. You keep thinking, OK, finally, we’ve hit bottom, and can begin trying to crawl our way up and out. But then you realize, we haven’t hit bottom; we’re just on a ledge, and then we start falling all over again. A few weeks ago, it seemed like the bottom. And today, maybe someone has sent down a rope. Two ropes! Hard to trust, though.”
It is only in that context that such normally prosaic acts as a nurse giving someone a shot and electors casting votes become so noteworthy. With America having failed so miserably at controlling the virus, which is now at or near records in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the mere promise of a vaccine had television news crews tracking trucks delivering the miracle doses as they began making their way across the country.
The Electoral College has never merited wall-to-wall coverage before either. What is typically a ministerial process simply translating the Election Day results into 538 votes divided among the states and the District of Columbia became a daylong event for CNN and MSNBC — CNN even had a graphic at the bottom of its screen tabulating the votes as they came in as if there were any actual suspense.
But it is still a polarized country. Over at Fox News, even as California sealed the victory for Mr. Biden, the hosts were busy instead hashing through the latest in the investigation of his son Hunter Biden, although some of them did refer to his father as the “president-elect.”
The new president-to-be sought to ignore that and to focus on the day’s events. Even as Mr. Trump remained cloistered in the White House, Mr. Biden emerged to try to pivot the country forward. “Now it’s time to turn the page, as we’ve done throughout our history,” he said. “To unite. To heal.”
At least for one day.