Will COVID-19 wind up saving lives?

By spurring vaccine development, the pandemic is one crisis that hasn’t gone to waste

A syringe.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

The light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter.

Emergency-use approval for a third COVID-19 vaccine (from Johnson & Johnson) is now secured, and four million doses have immediately shipped. Over 200 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are expected by month-end, and 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine (which is expected be approved next month) should follow by the end of April. The day when anyone can get a COVID vaccine is now within view. It's already time to start worrying about the next set of problems, from inadequate uptake by vaccine-resistant communities to ensuring poorer countries get adequate supplies of the vaccine, so that we can truly put this pandemic to an end.

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.