As a child, getting our picture in the newspaper was a special event. It might have been a candid photo from a football or baseball game, celebrating the team’s victory. Other images captured the high school band marching in the Memorial Day parade, or a budding swimmer testing out the water at the local wading pool on opening day. That magical photo was clipped out of the day’s paper and hung on the refrigerator in a place of honor, where it stayed for a few seasons before making it to the family scrapbook – or the trash can.
One newspaper photo that stands out in my memory was of a young neighbor who made the front page. She was four or five, and had just received an immunization at the health clinic. The indignation on her face at that moment of terror was classic, and while I doubt her mother proudly hung the image on her refrigerator, it did make its way to my mother’s scrapbook. I’m guessing that as my friend got older, she wasn’t too thrilled that her tears were spread across the front page of the Tonawanda News.
In sharp contrast to that photo are the hundreds of images that newly vaccinated people are posting to our worldwide virtual refrigerator, aka the internet. Unlike my young neighbor’s wail of pain and fury, millions of people are greeting their COVID-19 vaccinations with huge smiles and audible sighs of relief. COVID-19’s toll has been heavy, and a vaccine offers the first glimpse of hope we’ve had since it began to spread around the world over twelve months ago.
While it’s been devastating, the coronavirus of 2020-21 is not nearly as deadly as the dreaded smallpox. While the Chinese used a rudimentary vaccine against smallpox as early as 1000, it wasn’t until Edward Jenner experimented with cowpox biological material in 1796 that there was any possible preventative measure against the disease. He was so convinced of the need for this intervention that he tested it on his fifteen-month old son – and now because of his determination, smallpox has been eradicated. A century later, Louis Pasteur’s 1885 rabies vaccine began a rush to successful interventions, as diphtheria, tetanus, anthrax, cholera, plague, and typhoid began to lose their grip over the world’s population.
Post-World War II, polio brought summertime fear to mothers and fathers, as waves of infection randomly swept across a community, especially hitting children. As an example of its devastation, of the nearly 60,000 cases in the U.S. in 1952, one third resulted in some kind of paralysis. Yet by the time I entered school, the names Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin were whispered with reverence, as their vaccines forced polio infections to the role of a historical footnote.
That’s where we’d like to see COVID-19 end up, and the vaccines are helping us put the virus out of business. While Salk and Sabin quickly became household names in the 50s, we’re not as familiar with Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, a married couple who worked with the messenger RNA that is tricking cells into reacting to bits of protein that look like pieces of the virus in the Pfizer vaccine. Their goal is for the immune system to attack the invader, and then do the same if the actual virus shows up. The science is beyond anything I remember from tenth grade biology class, but Sahin and Tureci get it, and their brilliant and committed work, along with so many others, has the potential to save us.
In 1991, Lenny Kravitz sang words that ring true today: “So many tears we’ve cried, so much pain inside, but baby, it ain’t over till it’s over.” As Dr. Fauci so wisely reminds us, the U.S. could risk a surge of infections if the country declares victory over the coronavirus too soon. Indeed, the ‘rona ain’t over, as it’s still attacking with vigor and impudence (and even attempting some wicked mutations). But the more we bare our arms to the vaccine, and continue to mask up, wash our hands and keep our distance, the better the odds are of stripping this vicious virus of its power. It’s time.
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