Mike Couick
Last month, a few days after our state opened COVID-19 vaccine availability to those of us in the 1b crowd, I was in a Publix grocery store standing awkwardly in front of about 50 people having the first of the two required shots administered.
The shot itself elicited almost no pain, but I can tell you that I felt different than I did the day before. There was some relief and plenty of hope as I had taken the first step toward personal immunity from COVID-19.
My parents, 86 and 88, are feeling even better. They have had both shots and are well past the suggested post-vaccination buffer that the CDC has suggested. They are still very careful, but they have a hope of hugging family again soon.
I look forward to all of us sharing that sense of security and freedom. I look forward to returning to normal, or whatever version of normal is in our collective future. I pray it comes soon.
I know that to get there, however, it is going to take all of us—all of us wearing masks as long as we need to, regardless of mandates; all of us getting vaccinated as soon as we can, regardless of which one we prefer; all of us staying home or distant until we are sure it’s safe to do otherwise, regardless of the degree of our cabin fever or wanderlust.
It certainly took that kind of collective effort when we were challenged by other global epidemics. Smallpox killed billions of people around the world until the very first vaccination proved effective in 1798. By the mid-1850s, the counterintuitive practice of subjecting people to the similar, but nonlethal, cowpox virus became widely accepted. Now, thanks to infant immunization practices across the world, a disease that plagued humankind throughout history has been eradicated.
My parents can recall the fear that gripped the nation during the polio epidemic in the first half of the 20th century. The virus typically struck infants and children, but its most famous victim was a 39-year-old man who would later have a hand in the creation of electric cooperatives, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes, which unified the national effort to eradicate polio. The foundation funded the research of Jonas Salk, who introduced the first effective vaccine in 1955. Salk chose not to patent or seek profit from his team’s discovery in order to maximize its global distribution. Thanks to consistent, widespread childhood vaccination, polio was deemed eradicated in the Americas in 1994.
We can hold up individual heroes of these successful efforts, for sure. But they were only achievable because everyone did their part. Me walking around Publix with just one shot doesn’t solve the problem.
It’s like the electric cooperatives. If one person were wealthy enough to bring electricity to just their farmhouse, the rural electrification movement might never have happened. Instead, those early leaders worked to get everyone involved in the co-op out of concern for their community. Each new member, paying their $5, not only built the line to their home but to their neighbor’s as well.
The cooperatives did not stop deploying electricity at our nation’s borders. In 1962, NRECA International was established to share lessons learned in the rural electrification of the United States with developing countries around the world. Now, over 160 million people in 48 countries—that’s almost four times as many cooperative consumers as in the U.S.—have benefitted from access to reliable and affordable electricity.
That cooperative spirit is needed to defeat COVID-19 everywhere it has taken lives, separated families, and disrupted economies. Just as America did in the middle of the 20th century, we have the opportunity to lead again, to show the world how to eradicate a virus and then share those solutions with the global community.
Have questions about the vaccines? Visit the SCLivingMagazine YouTube channel to hear Dr. Jane Kelly, assistant state epidemiologist, explain how the vaccines work.