Coronavirus, Public Health The new Vaccine Wars mean the coronavirus casualties won’t end
Basic Page Sidebar Menu Perry World House
September 17, 2020
By
Trudy Rubin | The Philadelphia Inquirer
Late in the fourth year of the Trump presidency, the United States is confronting a far more dangerous war than the “forever wars” he says he is ending.
This is a multiphase conflict begun by the president himself, with new battle fronts opened daily. The deadly combat can end only if he is voted out of office.
It began as Trump’s War on Science, which has cost tens of thousands of U.S. lives due to the White House failure to contain COVID-19.
It has morphed into a Vaccine War, a new battle ground in which Trump contradicts his scientists with false claims that a vaccine will be generally available before the election. However, the White House politicization of science has created such mistrust that only 4 in 10 Americans say they would take a vaccine if offered prior to November. Thus the president undermines the very cure he claims will save the country...
“Vaccines are only one of two necessary tools, along with hygienic measures,” says Paul Offit, a renowned epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Of the two tools, masking and social distancing are “more potent,” Offit told a Perry World House webinar. “If I mask and stand six feet from you I won’t catch the virus.”