Editorial: We still have far to go in war on pandemic, but vaccine will help us get there

One of the more disappointing aspects of our initial experience with fighting the spread of COVID-19 has been the conversion of something as simple and innocuous as a face covering into a political symbol. Can we resolve not to let that happen now that a vaccine is on the way?

We ask this acknowledging that the nation enters this exciting period in the war on the virus with distinct political divisions. According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in November, the difference between Democrat-leaning and Republican-leaning respondents who said they likely would get vaccinated was 19 percentage points, with 69 percent of Democrats planning to get the shots compared to 50 percent of Republicans.

So, perhaps it is naive to expect at this stage that the vaccine decision would have no political undertones. But, keep in mind that President Donald Trump himself is, legitimately, touting the speed with which a safe and effective vaccine was produced, and his administration is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign to persuade Americans to take it.

Central to that objective, of course, is assuring the public that the vaccine is safe. One of the great values of our meticulous regulatory system for health issues is its commitment to transparency and safety, and one of the great accomplishments of our scientific community - as reinforced in a Health and Human Services video on vaccines featuring infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony S. Fauci - is its success in bringing viruses under control.

So, the decision to take this one need not, certainly should not, be a litmus test on political loyalties. It should be, as with masks for that matter, only a show of concern for your own health and that of your friends, neighbors and fellow Americans.

For nine long months, we have longed for a breakthrough that could offer hope of an end to a crisis that has battered our personal lives and brought our economy to its knees. At last, one is upon us. What a mistake it would be, what a waste it would be, to reject or impede this advance after so much sacrifice.

For most of us, the vaccine decision may be months off yet. The shots first must reach the people on the front lines of the crisis and our most-vulnerable populations. Nor, as another deadly surge of the virus pulses through our ranks, does the sudden availability of a vaccine indicate the end to all our worries. But, to paraphrase Churchill, it does perhaps signal the end of the beginning of this particular war.

Ultimate victory - our return to stores, concerts, restaurants, parties, gyms, workplaces and all the other scenes of what we formerly called normal life - depends on achieving a level of immunity that can halt the spread of a disease that is claiming nearly the equivalent of the 9/11 toll every day. The vaccine, in short, is not for us as individuals; it is for others, for the vulnerable, the people we care about, the people who keep our society running.

In that context, getting the shot is not a political act, but it is a community-minded one. Sadly, in the chaos and selfishness of a factious political climate in the early days of the pandemic, we slid too easily into ideological camps, while ignoring the science behind the value of wearing masks, not just for ourselves but for others.

Having seen the cost in lives and suffering of that unnecessary conflict, let's put behind us the mistakes of the beginning and resolve to let health expertise, not political partisanship, guide us in this next phase on the path to our common objective.