Betting on America – Tom Finneran

Friday, October 16, 2020

Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Tom Finneran is the former MA Speaker of the House

COMMENT:

2020 has been the worst year that I can ever recall. Illness and death are constant parts of the human condition and each year brings some form of loss to America’s extended families. But 2020 has brought different proportions of loss and multiples of misery all around the world, including millions of deaths and hundreds of millions thrown into economic paralysis.

PREDICTION:

The first six months of 2021 will be vastly better than this miserable stretch of 2020 we’ve been navigating. And I can’t wait for it to happen…………………….

I call it “betting on America”. My wager is based on the unique history and culture of the United States and the encouraging signposts I see along the road to recovery.

First, our rapidly improving situation is not dependent on the election or re-election of Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Rather, it is American science and American industry, now sitting in the driver’s seat and roused to a national and global purpose. That purpose is akin to America’s world-saving launch of the “arsenal of democracy” in World War II. We are at fever pitch in our quest.

Watch for the approval and increasing availability of Covid-effective vaccines and therapeutics sometime in the first quarter of 2021. As I write, there are at least six vaccines being put through vigorous clinical trials. And America’s “vaccine team” is confident that multiple vaccines will begin to be available before the end of the first quarter of 2021.

At that point, complex logistical challenges come front and center for America. And there is no place on Planet Earth that does logistics like the good old USA. Some vaccines will only have an effective post-laboratory lifespan of several days and will have to be delivered and administered within that timeframe. Bet on America making that happen. Some vaccines will have to be shipped and maintained in extremely cold condition (-30 C) until the point of injection. Bet on America getting it done. Some vaccines will involve the administration of double doses, spaced a few weeks apart. Bet on America hitting it out of the park. Mastering these logistical challenges is in our wheelhouse.

Similarly, the rigor of America’s clinical trial protocols greatly exceeds that of European countries and other developed nations. We enroll more patients and we monitor more precisely both the efficacy and the side effects of any potential drug or vaccine. Where routine clinical trials will enroll 8000-12,000 patients, the Covid vaccine and therapeutic trials are enrolling between 30,000 and 70,000 patients in each trial. And, based upon differing health characteristics, each trial has enrolled impressive percentages of minority groups, senior citizens, and health-compromised seniors. America is doing it right.

Operation Warp Speed is America’s response to the Covid crisis. It reminds me of the Berlin Airlift and the Apollo missions to the moon---a unique response to a complicated challenge, met and overcome by brains and determination.

Our country does these things well. Bet on America in 2021.