Fever. Respiratory distress. Flu-like symptoms. It didn’t sound so frightening.
And for a few months, we lived with COVID-19 in the periphery of our collective consciousness. It was out there — in Asia, then Europe — but it wasn’t here. And maybe it never would be.
Or so we told ourselves.
We all know what happened next. Immune to human constructs like denial and heedless optimism, the virus settled into every nook and cranny of our collective lives.
Early efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a diagnostic test squandered valuable time. Not only did the effort prove fruitless, but needlessly stringent guidelines suffocated the development of other tests in academia and the private sector. By the time the CDC finally loosened the reins, any hopes of developing an effective national testing, surveillance and contract tracing system had gone out the window. The virus was everywhere.
Whether strong governmental leadership at the national level would have squelched viral spread like it did in South Korea and China became a moot question. Instead, we (or at least most of us) strapped on our masks, looked to the horizon and awaited the one thing that could save us: a vaccine.
This being the home of the brave and the land of the free markets, we did not look to the government for rescue. Instead, we pinned our hopes on corporate America. Or, more specifically, the pharmaceutical industry.
When it comes to central casting for saviors, big drug companies hardly fit the bill. In 2019, a Gallup poll found that the American public ranked the pharmaceutical industry dead last among 25 sectors of our country’s economy.
