We can’t stay in quarantine forever, it’s true. However, we never did a proper quarantine to start off with. There were two or three points to stop this. We missed them.

We had months to prepare for it. We squandered them.

I don’t think a large enough block of the population will take the vaccine either to provide hers immunity. But it will be available for those who are higher risk. I also don’t think it’s too much to ask for mask wearing and social distancing in public until the vaccine is ready and people can protect themselves.

And yes, it will be a while before it’s widely available. The Trump administration has been grossly misrepresenting that for political capital. If you listen carefully, the public health officials have been consistent about average development times and to point out that development is just the beginning. You have to add to that manufacture and distribution time. They’ve also been consistent in saying that November is an absolute best case scenario for development but that it’s rare that things don’t go wrong along the process. We’re seeing that now with several of the attempts not clearing safety hurdles.