May 30, 2020 Issue, Page 4 of 10

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Page 4 The Elk City News, Elk City, Oklahoma Saturday, May 30, 2020 Opinion Page Lockdowns haven’t proved they’re worth the havoc “ElkCituNews By Joe Nocera, Bloom- buried well inside the paper. berg Opinion I did read the Boston egated to a small handful of coronavirus contrarians: catastrophe. The second issue is that Serving Western Oklahoma since 1901 My junior and senior Globe, but it wasn’t exactly with all the businesses that there is surprisingly little years in high school were trumpeting the news either. are going to fail, and the tens evidence that lockdowns While the U.S. rushes 1968 and 1969; five decades later, I can still remember T found a humor piece by of millions of people who work. Last week, a statis- Art Buchwald (“For pretty will be unemployed _and the tician named William M. to develop a COVID-19 some of the main events young ladies, the HKF can other negative consequences Briggs, who is solidly in the of that era: the assassina- be your protection from that come with forcing peo- anti-lockdown camp, wrote tions of Martin Luther King drunken bosses at Christ- ple to stay at home _ will the a blog post comparing coun- vaccine, here’s what and Robert F. Kennedy, the mas parties”). The news lockdown have been worth tries that locked down with bombing of Cambodia, the that the virus was officially it? Or would we have been science tells us Apollo 8 spaceflight that or- countries that didn’t. As of an epidemic ran in a short better off doing something May 12, the U.S. had 237 bited the moon, and Wood- wire-service article on Page closer to what the country By Arthur Allen, Los Angeles Times stock, which I pleaded with 5. On New Year’s Eve, the did in 1968 _ yes, taking pre- deaths per million people. If there is a silver lining to the flawed U.S. response to Taiwan, a no-lockdown the coronavirus pandemic, it is this: The relatively high my parents to let me attend. Globe predicted that the flu cautions like wearing masks, country, had 0.3 deaths per (They said no.) might keep people indoors. washing hands and protect- number of new cases being diagnosed daily - upward of In my personal life, I re- Or maybe not: “Flu or not, ing the elderly, but allowing million. (The country has 20,000 - will make it easier to test new vaccines. had a total of seven deaths.) To determine whether a vaccine prevents disease, the member playing on the there are many who won’t businesses and schools to basketball team, buying my let anything stand in the way stay open while people went No-lockdown Sweden has study’s subjects need to be exposed to the pathogen as it circulates in the population. Reopening the economy will first car, working in my fam- of celebrating the holiday.” about their lives? had 347 deaths per milliot likely result in faster spread of the coronavirus and there- ily’s corner grocery store From our current perspec- There are two issues here. lockdown Belgium, with fore more opportunities to test a vaccine’s efficacy in trial and wishing I had the nerve tive, with shelter-in-place The first is that quarantining a similar population, has subjects. to ask certain girls out on a rules in much of the coun- an entire population is not had 763 deaths per million. Under a proposal under discussion by a committee set up date. Here’s what I don’t try, the most striking thing some set-in-stone technique Ethiopia, with a population remember: the pandemic of about the contemporaneous that has been used for de- of 109 million, had no lock- by the National Institutes of Health, each of four or five ex- perimental vaccines would be tested on about 20,000 trial 1968-1969. accounts was the absence of cades to stem the spread of down - and a death rate of participants with a placebo group of 10,000 for each vac- And yet there was one. It any discussion of lockdowns a virus. It was first proposed 0.04 per million. cine. Some 50 U.S. medical centers - and perhaps an equal was called the H3N2 virus or even social distancing. I in 2006 by two government “Death rates were more number overseas - would participate in these trials. — less formally, the Hong saw a few photos of nurses doctors _ neither of them than highly variable; they On May 18, Moderna, the biotech company, reported Kong flu _ and it took a sig- and office workers wearing infectious disease special- were all over the place,” promising results in the first eight of 45 people enrolled in nificant toll. The Centers for masks, but that apparently ists _ after President George Briggs wrote of the data he an initial test of the safety and immune responses to its vac- Disease Control and Pre- wasn’t mandated either. W. Bush asked for a plan to had collected. “If lockdowns cine. Analysts attributed a 900-point jump in the Dow that vention has estimated that 1 Even the occasional school combat pandemics. worked as advertised, we day at least partly to this very preliminary data, so eager million people died world- closings were one-offs; not Soon afterward, a paper would not see such enor- are investors for any signs of progress in efforts to control wide, 100,000 in the U.S. a single state ordered that was published calling for a mous variability in the death the pandemic. Conditions in large U.S. schools or businesses be national policy of sheltering- rates.” Moderna is running animal and human studies simultane- cities sound similar to what closed en masse. The vi- in-place. It swayed Bush. “What should we con- ously, and plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to they’re going through now, rus swept across the world, But four scientists who were clude?” he added. “Strike build laboratories where the vaccine will be produced even with overwhelmed hospital causing tens of millions of infectious disease special- that. What can we conclude? before it’s approved. The Food and Drug Administration workers, millions of people people to become sick _ and ists also wrote a paper about on May 12 promised an accelerated review of Moderna’s getting sick and the elderly killing nearly three times the the idea _ a devastating cri- Only one thing: We cannot vaccine, which works by injecting pieces of synthetic vi- most likely to die. number of people who have tique. There was no science conclude that lockdowns ral RNA into the body to stimulate an immune response to WhenIfirst read about this. died so far of COVID-19 _ to support the notion that a worked.” the virus. The speed in developing vaccines for widespread pandemic, I could scarcely and the world’s chief miti- national quarantine would Let me point out one other testing this summer is impressive, certainly compared with fact about the pandemic of the nation’s inadequate, delayed response to providing believe I had missed it. Ac- gation effort was to race to halt the spread of infection, coronavirus testing and PPE to health care providers. cording to a recent article in make a vaccine. By the time they wrote. It could increase the late 1960s. Like many Still, many scientists have expressed skepticism at the one was ready, the pandemic the risk of infection for peo- coronaviruses, the H3N2 vi- the Wall Street Journal, the breakneck timetable put forward by some Trump admin- virus wreaked havoc in Eu- had largely fizzled out. ple living in close quarters. rus came in waves. The last istration officials, who say that 100 million doses of a vac- rope, with French manufac- This pandemic, of course, Closing theaters, malls, res- one began in the fall of 1969 cine could be available by November. Even the normally turers suffering severe dis- will be indelibly seared in taurants, stores and bars _ and ended in early 1970. sober Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of tuptions and West German the memory of those who not to mention church ser- Assuming this coronavirus Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a Senate committee garbage collectors bury- lived through it. It is the big- vices and athletic events _ fades in the summer, there on May 12 that a vaccine could have proven safety and ef- ing the dead because there gest story since 9/11, with would have “serious disrup- is a high likelihood that it ficacy by then. weren’t enough undertakers. the ever-rising number of tive consequences.” Clos- will return with a vengeance Running a trial of the size and speed contemplated by In the U.S., The New York cases and deaths dominating ing schools was not only in the fall and winter. If that the NIH will be an immense undertaking. Just setting up Times reported, the Citadel the news. Children who are impractical “but carries the happens, are you truly ready trial locations and getting common consent and data-entry had to suspend classes be- now wearing masks, doing possibility of a seriously ad- to lockdown again? forms into shape usually takes months. Enrolling 30,000 cause 165 cadets came down schoolwork online and stay- verse outcome.” And so on. I didn’t think so. people for a single vaccine trial is a big challenge. with the virus. Absentee- ing indoors will never forget The scientists concluded: In addition, defining success in a vaccine against COV- (1) “The Hong Kong Flu ism in Los Angeles schools it. Experience has shown Began in Red China,” was ID-19 will be no simple matter. As scientists design vaccine rose as high as 25%. In Bos- They’ll also no doubt re- that communities faced with trials, they first have to set the “endpoints” that determine the headline of an AP story ton, where I would soon be member the economic after- epidemics or other adverse success or failure. Death? Length of illness? Hospitaliza- The New York Times ran in tion? Number of days in which a subject is infectious? headed to college, university math, which is likely to be events respond best and with mid-December 1968 Ifthere is little virus circulating wherea trial is being run, infirmaries were said to be horrific, with deflation and the least anxiety when the Joe Nocera is a Bloom- even a vast study won't prove anything. On the other hand, filled with ill students. Tal- even a depression a possibil- normal social functioning of if a vaccine trial had started in early April in New York lulah Bankhead was a prom- ity. On Tuesday, testifying the community is least dis- berg Opinion columnist City, where roughly 10,000 cases a day were reported for inent victim of the virus. before the Senate Banking rupted. Strong political and covering business. He has weeks, 30,000 participants would have been plenty to show ‘A quick search confirms Committee, Treasury Sec- public health leadership to written business columns whether the vaccine protected against disease. that the Times(1) had cov- retary Steven Mnuchin said provide reassurance and to for Esquire, GQ and The In all likelihood, the big NIH trials will focus on rates of ered the pandemic at the that “there is a risk of perma- ensure that needed medical New York Times, and is the infection as well as clinical symptoms such as fever and time. But I didn’t read the nent damage” to the econo- care services are provided former editorial director of cough. To discover whether the vaccine prevents severe Times when I was in high my if the country remained are critical elements. If ei- Fortune. His latest project disease, which is relatively rare, is harder. COVID-19, ac- is the Bloomberg-Wondery cording to one account, kills about 0.6% of those it infects, school, and even if I had, I locked down much longer. ther is seen to be less than while perhaps six times that many require hospitalization. might well have missed the All of which raises a ques- optimal, a manageable epi- podcast “The Shrink Next People who take part in a trial will be given clear instruc- coverage. Every article was tion that has so far been rel- demic could move toward Door.” tions to protect themselves against infection through social distancing, face masks, frequent hand-washing and so on. Common sense should be practiced as states open That will lower the numbers of people infected during the study. By The Oklahoma, Insti- meant to supplement — not ing and employees wearing — Encourage anyone who “You'd have to ask all the people enrolled in a trial to tute for Child Advocacy replace — any state, local, ter- a cloth face covering, as fea- is sick to stay home. practice good hygiene,” says Paul Offit, director of the As Oklahoma government ritorial, or tribal health and sible. — Plan for if children or Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Phila- officials move our state into safety laws, rules, and regu- — Intensify cleaning, dis- employees get sick. delphia. “You don’t want them to get infected - but you “Phase 2” of reopening after lations with which schools infection, and ventilation of — Regularly communicate do.” When Jonas Salk announced the successful trial of COVID-19, it is important must comply.” facilities and transport ve- his polio vaccine in 1955, the nation celebrated a vaccine for us to maintain safe prac- This is especially impor- hicles/buses. and monitor developments with local authorities, em- that could virtually eliminate a deadly infectious disease tices. The Centers for Dis- tant with the plan that the — Encourage social dis- overnight. A new coronavirus vaccine may not provide that ease Control and Prevention Oklahoma Secondary Sports tancing through increased ployees, and families re- kind of overnight success. Instead, it may be more akin to issued recommendations Athletic Association consid- spacing, small groups, and garding cases, exposures, the flu vaccine, which reduces the risk or severity of the and updates to policies and recently for those commu- ered on Friday for phased re- limited mixing between illness but requires a new shot each year. Vaccinating 20,000 people in a trial can reveal whether nities who are considering turn to practices, which they groups, and staggered sched- procedures, a vaccine is clearly dangerous to a general population. But opening schools and events. defeated by one vote. uling, arrival, and drop off, — Monitor child and em- when 200 million receive the same vaccine, less common The link — https://www. Their tentative plan was if feasible. ployee absences and have a side effects could still affect thousands. Botched batches cde.gov/coronavirus/2019- to open programs back up ~- Where feasible, adjust pool of trained substitutes, of polio vaccines released after Salk’s trial permanently ncov/community/schools- in some capacity on June 1, activities and procedures to and flexible leave policies paralyzed 200 people and killed 10. Early vaccines against childcare/schools.html — on allowing coaches and ath- limit sharing of items such measles caused tens of thousands of cases of grave illness the CDC website recom- letes to have limited contact. as toys, belongings, sup- and practices. mends “schools can deter- Then on June 15, weight plies, and equipment. — Be ready to consult with in the 1960s. Maurice Hilleman, the vaccine pioneer who developed successful vaccines against measles, mumps, mine, in collaboration with rooms could open with strict — Train all employees on the local health authorities if hepatitis A and B and other diseases, once said he never state and local health offi- social distancing guidelines health and safety protocols. there are cases in the facility breathed a sigh of relief “until the first 3 million doses” had cials to the extent possible, in place. Then a third phase — Develop and implement or an increase in cases in the been delivered. whether and how to imple- would come toward the end procedures to check for local area. Unexpected problems naturally bedevil quick rollouts, as ment these considerations of summer, This was all signs and symptoms in chil- OICA also asks schools, this one will almost certainly be as the nation searches for while adjusting to meet the contingent upon no further dren and employees daily once things reopen, to con- a way to check a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands unique needs and circum- waves of outbreak from CO- upon arrival, as feasible. sider staggering practice of Americans and paralyzing the economy. But as Grego- stances of the local commu- VID-19 and will likely be re- - If feasible, implement times for those families that ry Poland, the leader of Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research, nity. Implementation should visited by OSSAA in about enhanced screening for chil- have loved ones in close told me, “There is an irresolvable tension of speed versus be guided by what is fea- a month. dren and employees who safety.” sible, practical, acceptable, We ask that they and each have recently been present contact to one another in Arthur Allen is an editorfor Kaiser Health News, which publish- and tailored to the needs of school consider these CDC in areas of high transmis- high-risk categories. Stu- es California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the each community.” recommendations: sion, including temperature dent athletes could transfer California Health Care Foundation. He is also the author of “Vac- They also recommend that —Promote healthy hygiene checks and symptom moni- the illness before symptoms cine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver.” “these considerations are practices such as hand wash- toring. show up.