the Vaccine

There is currently no COVID-19 vaccine approved for general use in the US or the EU.  Not for lack of trying -- there are hundreds of vaccine candidates undergoing testing as I write this.  It takes time to test vaccines for safety and effectiveness -- usually it takes several years to develop and produce a new vaccine.  When the so-called "Swine Flu" or H1N1 epidemic happened in 2009, it was relatively easy to produce a vaccine within six months because there was already a global infrastructure for manufacturing flu vaccine -- they just had to swap in that new version of the flu, as they do each year.  I remember I was able to get this novel 2009 H1N1 vaccine pretty quickly, before the end of 2009.

But we had no pre-existing global infrastructure for manufacturing coronavirus vaccines.  So it is taking a bit longer than six months.

Unfortunately, like everything else in the US, vaccine development for COVID-19 has become politicized.  Trump often boasts unrealistically about when a vaccine will be available, and how quickly it will be distributed to the general public.  Democrats warn that any vaccine approved by the Trump administration prior to the November election cannot be trusted.

As these political games continue, the willingness of the public to accept a hypothetical COVID-19 vaccine is dropping.  Earlier this year over 70% said they would take the vaccine when available, now only 50% say they would.  Republicans and people without a college education are especially unwilling to take the vaccine, probably because these classes of individuals are less trusting of science in general.

As no vaccine has finished the testing process yet, it is literally impossible to say when a vaccine will be approved, how effective it will be, and how quickly it will be available to the general public.  It is still possible that no vaccine will ever be approved.

But early indications for some vaccine candidates are showing some promise, so public health officials -- those whose comments are not driven by politics -- estimate that a vaccine could be approved by the end of this year, and widely available by next summer.  We'll just have to wait and see what the data show.  Vaccine approval is, and should be, a data-driven process.

In a typical vaccine trial, tens of thousands of volunteers are divided into two groups: (1) a control group, (2) an experimental group.  The control group receives an injection of salt water, the experimental group receives an injection of vaccine.  The volunteers are not told which group they belong to.  Over the next several months, these volunteers are carefully tested and monitored to see what happens to them.  Do they experience dangerous side effects?  Does the experimental group come down with COVID-19 significantly less often than the control group?

It takes time to collect enough data on side effects and infection rates.  After several months -- it is difficult to say exactly how long it takes -- there's enough data to make an initial judgment regarding safety and effectiveness.  If the data show the vaccine is safe and at least 50% effective, then the vaccine will be approved for general use.  At that point the factories will start producing hundreds of millions of doses.

The leading vaccines, if found safe and effective, will require two doses separated by a month, and then two weeks after the second dose you'd have antibodies for COVID-19.  So even after you get your first dose, you'll have to wait a month, get a second dose, and then wait two more weeks.  That's between 6 and 7 weeks until you'll have antibodies.

Then the question is -- how effective will these antibodies be for you?  Right now it is impossible to know for sure.  If the vaccine is minimally effective -- 50% -- then your chances of coming down with COVID-19 will be cut in half.  Millions of people would still get sick with a 50% effective vaccine.  Perhaps thousands would still die.

Imagine a world in which 50% of the population refuses the vaccine, and the vaccine is only 50% effective.  This would only protect 25% of the population from COVID-19.  This could be our situation a year from now -- that we only blunt the pandemic by 25%.  Would it be safe to return to "normal" in that case?

A better scenario is that 75% of the population takes an 80% effective vaccine.  That would protect 60% of the population, a much better scenario.

We're not likely to get 100% of the population to take the vaccine, and we're not likely to get a vaccine that is 100% effective.  So, COVID-19 will continue to exist, will continue to spread, will continue to make people sick, will continue to kill people.  But what number of annual deaths from COVID-19 are we willing to accept as the new normal?

Right now we're limping along with about 1,000 deaths per day in the US -- enough to keep many schools closed and businesses operating at reduced capacity.  How far down does that number need to go before we're willing to return to normal?

It's all up in the air right now.  Will a vaccine be approved, when, how effective will it be, how many people will take it, and then how much will that put a dent in the pandemic?

COVID-19 will never go away, it is here to stay, just like 2009 H1N1 continues to spread around the world.  But at some point COVID-19 will stop being news.  If an effective vaccine is available for free to everybody at your local pharmacy next summer, then we might be able to reopen all the schools next fall, and go back to crowded bars and restaurants, and get back on airplanes ...

This is the best case scenario -- that we'll be back to normal next fall.  But it will depend on two big factors -- willingness to get vaccinated, and effectiveness of the vaccine.  I'm hopeful that by my 54th birthday, I'll be able to throw a party, and all of my vaccinated friends will be able to gather for food, conversation, and board games, like we used to.  I'll be able to cruise for hookups again.  I'll be able to travel again.  That's my dream.  But this dream depends on Science, not Politics, and the data cannot be rushed.

24 minutes ...

So far, it is easiest to "schedule" my daily meditation if I wake up at the house before T does, which is my norm. He usually sets his alarm for 6am, so all I have to do if I wake up early is wait until around 5:30am and then do my meditation before T's alarm goes off.

It is also easy if I'm at the condo by myself on a weekend.

A bit more difficult to schedule if I wake after T, or if I'm not by myself at the condo.

This morning's meditation revealed that I'm not currently anxious about work, I was more likely to slip off into dreamland for a minute than to worry about my upcoming day. The one thing I'm not sure of, is when I'll be able to quit working for the day.

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This morning I also had time to tally up all my monthly charitable contributions. I've got a lot more of them than I used to, earlier this year I was adding a bunch of them to help with the Pandemic Recession, stuff like food banks. Personally I wasn't spending as much as I'd planned on things like travel and restaurants, Dax day care or the commute, so I was looking for other ways to spend money, and giving it away was one method.

I was surprised by the tally -- I'm giving away more than 6% of my take-home pay. So ... I'm already meeting my reduced consumption goal for 2022 ... but not all of these contributions qualify as carbon-offsets. Over the next several months I will swap some non-offset charities for offset charities and then I'll be good until January 2023, when I'll have to increase my overall giving to 10%.

One thing I'm learning from this -- if as a nation we gave ourselves 30 years to achieve something like a New Green Deal, it would not be so disruptive. Changing behaviors by a few percentage points per year --> at first the changes would feel relatively easy, we could congratulate ourselves on making good progress, and we'd have time to plan for the more difficult aspects coming later. But, of course, first we'd have to agree as a nation to set goals like these. We can't even agree on what precautions to take during the worst pandemic in 100 years. We can't even agree on how much aid to give an economy as it tries to recover from the worst recession in 90 years.

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An approach informed by Zen wouldn't expect anything other than the current reality -- that we aren't going to fix our problems. Zen focuses on that 53rd problem -- the problem of wanting to have no problems.

If I became a Zen monk and relied on the kindness of contributors for food, clothing, and shelter, and spent my days teaching people to stare at the wall while focusing on their breath ...

The founder of the Soto Zen school, Eihei Dōgen, lived during the first half of the 13th Century, in Feudal Japan. He was my current age when he died. During the midpoint of his life, Japan fell into a civil war between a "retired" Emperor and the Shogunate. There was no such thing as democracy in Feudal Japan.

Daily life in Feudal Japan was, for most people, the age-old struggle to put food on the table, build a family, stay healthy, and try to enjoy the finer things in life whenever possible. The upper classes had better and more colourful clothes, used expensive foreign porcelain, were entertained by Noh theatre and could afford to travel to other parts of Japan while the lower classes had to make do with plain cotton, ate rice and fish, and were mostly preoccupied with surviving the occasional famine, outbreaks of disease, and the civil wars that blighted the country.

They didn't have the Industrial Revolution, computers, or social media. They weren't worried about global warming, species extinction, or President Trump. Before the rise of democracy, the average person had zero say in who ran the country, and it would've been a spectacularly ridiculous idea to suggest they should have any. You just kept your head down and hoped neither the ruling class nor the bandits would wreck your life.

In the midst of this world, Dōgen simply taught Zazen to everybody who wanted to learn:

For zazen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha.

He gave sermons, what Buddhists call "dharma talks". A set of these were collected and published as the Shōbōgenzō, which has since been translated into modern English. I own the first volume of one of these translations, although I've never read it. I just now pulled it down from the shelf of my desk in my bedroom to stare at it momentarily.

A much more accessible treatment of Dogen's teachings is provided by Soto Zen teacher Brad Warner in his book, "Don't be a Jerk", LOL.

So, I'll allow that title to stand in for any additional Zen philosophy that goes beyond "just sitting".

Sit in meditation for 24++ minutes each day, and don't be a jerk :-)