The dangers of America winning the race for a coronavirus vaccine

When it comes to the race to find a cure for the coronavirus, there is new reason for all to have a little cautious optimism. Unfortunately, for those of us in America who understand that what might be known as the “rich man’s disease” disease globally is a poor person’s death sentence closer to home, there is also new cause for fear.

As a result of the modest but meaningful signs that we could be on the verge of a medical breakthrough, we ought to seriously ask whether it’s in our collective interest to champion a country with a more equitable healthcare system to find a vaccine first.

That’s not to completely piss at the news that according to its manufacturer, Moderna, the first coronavirus vaccine to be tested in people here appears to showing signs of great success. Eight healthy volunteers ranging from ages 18 to 55 volunteered and the vaccine appears to be safe and able to stimulate an immune response against the virus, based on initial findings.

Of course, even if the vaccine were eventually proven safe, we are very, very far away from a vaccine being made widely available in America. There is more testing to be done; eight volunteers are not anywhere near enough. And even if everything went fantastically, it would still take a while to manufacture enough of the vaccine to be made widely available to the general American population, which surpasses 300 million.

Still, the news has boosted Wall Street; Moderna’s stocks shot up today after its good news. Even more exciting for investors — and for the world — is the fact that dozens of companies and universities are working on their own respective vaccines. Of those, many are also testing prospective vaccines in human candidates: Pfizer along with its German partner BioNTech, the Chinese company CanSino, and the University of Oxford in association with AstraZeneca, among others.

No shade to my fellow Americans, but while I’m not a fan of Boris Johnson or eating beans for breakfast, I’m tipping my hat to the good folks over at Oxford University to find a vaccine first. I love my fellow Americans, but I hate our healthcare system. The only people who appear to love it are those who profit from it.

What troubles me and other people familiar with the American healthcare system is that we understand the American healthcare system isn’t so much a healthcare system as it is a health insurance industry. Healthcare should not be driven by profit and it leads to piss-poor health — one of the factors contributing to Americans making up one in three coronavirus deaths. And we know if a person doesn’t have the means to pay for healthcare, this country will swiftly let them die.

So many people are needlessly dying now because the American healthcare system is designed to let them. Why should I put trust in any aspect of our healthcare system, much less the pharmaceutical industry, to do the right thing?

And no, I am not being absolutist — I wouldn’t brand every company or drug they produce evil — but none of us should kid ourselves about how access works. To wit, I am a gay Black man very cognizant of the fact that many poor Black and Latinx queer men are dying because drugs like PrEP are too damn expensive.

This country will do the same to the Black people making up far too many of the coronavirus deaths for reasons related more so to their repression than personal responsibility. I’d like to think an American drug company would be better than that, but I can’t be a sucker in this economy or climate. I have to root for the people who have a healthcare system that is for all, not for who can afford it.

This disease should be teaching us to be more charitable and compassionate, and in the coronavirus vaccine race, I put decency before country. As I recall from all the fables I was told about America in history class, that’s supposed to be our kind of thing anyway.

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