By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Where has the coronavirus gone?
Nowhere. The pandemic has gained a second wind, even as
it is mysteriously scarcer in post-election headlines. If anything, COVID-19
seems more contagious as cold temperatures arrive, people stay in indoors, and
perhaps their vitamin D levels taper off.
Whatever one’s views on the virus — whether it remains an
existential threat or, contrarily, prompts overreactive lockdowns that are more
harmful and maybe even deadlier than the virus itself — nothing much has
changed since Election Day.
Or did viral perceptions suddenly change? The pandemic
certainly no longer serves as an election lever to demagogue President Trump as
a veritable killer.
States such as California are under a nearly complete
lockdown. Draconian measures will abbreviate Thanksgiving gatherings in a way
unprecedented in U.S. history. Yet elites such as California’s Governor Gavin
Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) have violated
the quarantines they themselves have endorsed.
Following the media announcement that Joe Biden would
likely become president, crowds swarmed into the streets of San Francisco and
Los Angeles. They violated every state mandate requiring masks and social
distancing. Authorities did nothing — just as they had done nothing during the
summer-long protesting and rioting. Apparently, some outdoor gatherings were
correct; others, not so much.
A similar warping of science accompanied news about the
possible rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Julie Kelly of the conservative website American
Greatness has documented the changing narratives about the Pfizer COVID-19
vaccine. Pfizer is one of five companies in line to receive massive federal
funding under the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program to hasten
mass vaccinations. Such an ambitious program is unmatched in the history of
viral epidemiology. On November 16, another company in the program, Moderna,
announced promising results from a clinical trial.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla predicted in early September
that by the end of October, his company would offer a preliminary announcement
concerning the safety and effectiveness of his company’s vaccine. His forecast
was met with apprehension on the left. Any positive assessment was seen by the
Left as political, validating, shortly before the election, the Trump
administration’s rapid response to the virus.
Yet on October 27, a week before the election, Pfizer
corrected Bourla’s earlier estimate. The company claimed any such declaration
would follow rather than precede the election.
“For us, the election is an artificial milestone,” Bourla
said. “This is going to be not a Republican vaccine or a Democrat vaccine. It
will be a vaccine for the citizens of the world.”
Admirable rhetoric. But a few days after the election,
Pfizer abruptly announced that in mass human trials, its vaccine had proven 90
percent effective and safe after all.
Still odder than the recalibrated timing was what the
company did next.
First, a Pfizer official claimed that the company had
never been part of Operation Warp Speed. In an earlier press release, Pfizer
had bragged about being an integral player in the multibillion-dollar federal
effort to rush the vaccine into use. The day after the Pfizer official denied
that the company was part of the program, another company spokesman conceded
that the company is, in fact, part of Operation Warp Speed.
Second, Pfizer gave notice of its purported vaccine breakthrough
not in a press conference or a communiqué to the sitting president. Instead,
according to Joe Biden, the company contacted his campaign’s “public-health
advisers.”
Apparently, Pfizer had, in fact, been guided by the
“artificial milestone” of the election, even if inadvertently.
Or was Pfizer trying to gain political support for its
vaccine rollout from Biden, who was an overwhelming favorite in almost all the
pre-election polls? Members of Biden’s campaign team told Bloomberg News that
Biden advisers had met before the election with officials at companies that are
working on vaccines.
Why would Pfizer act in such a way?
Perhaps because skeptics Biden and running mate Kamala
Harris had downplayed the notion of a Trump push to get millions of Americans
vaccinated.
Weeks before the election and the expected Pfizer
announcement, Biden had scoffed: “I trust vaccines. I trust scientists. But I
don’t trust Donald Trump.”
Harris demonized a potential Operation Warp Speed vaccine
during a vice-presidential debate: “If Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m
not taking it.”
Before the election, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo
derided the notion of a pre-election vaccine announcement. After the Pfizer
announcement, Cuomo blasted the Trump administration, claiming it should get no
credit for the speed of the vaccine development but lots of blame for a
predicted slow rollout.
Irony abounds. Those who accused Trump of playing
politics with the virus made him look like an amateur when compared with their
own machinations. Those who claimed they were guided by science proved
unscientific in their partisanship.
No wonder Americans remain so skeptical of the experts in
general and the Washington administrative state in particular.
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