There is an old saying about the night being darkest before dawn brings the light of a new day. Night’s darkest hour seems to be where the country — and certainly Massachusetts — is dwelling with the effort to get everyone vaccinated against COVID-19.
The vaccination news on Thursday included a report claiming 30 percent of military personnel have expressed reluctance about getting vaccinated, and the Massachusetts’ vaccine website crashed after the eligibility pool widened to include people over 65.
The confusion and frustration surrounding vaccination will eventually give way to an efficient vaccination system that most people embrace with confidence and even enthusiasm.
Let’s face it: A massive effort to inoculate most of the world’s population against COVID-19 is a vital step — if not the only step — to stop the pandemic’s seemingly-relentless killing spree.
It’s hard to imagine anyone would not embrace vaccination after a year marked by a rising death toll, semi-isolation imposed on most people, and economic devastation.
For perspective’s sake, let’s think back to February 2020 when COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Things sounded serious, but no one really thought we were about to close stores, end public gatherings, halt dining out, shut down workplaces and schools and wear masks every day.
COVID-19’s first weeks still made room for wishful thinking about schools reopening in May 2020 and summer 2020 welcoming back sports, concerts and throwing away masks.
In a perfect world, COVID-19’s appearance would have collectively time traveled all of us back to 1941 where we rolled up our sleeves as a nation and vowed to relentlessly battle the enemy until it was defeated.
But we live in the 21st century, not the 20th, and the national leadership that was required to galvanize more than 300 million people around a plan to wear masks, socially distance and, ultimately, to get vaccinated, never materialized.
Maybe it was doomed to never materialize. Social media has turned everyone into Instagram and selfie stars and elevated all of our opinions to expert status. Historians may conclude decades from now that we were all too self-centered to embrace a coordinated national response to ending COVID-19.
Then again, there are real and imagined fears surrounding the COVID-19 vaccinations that have stymied the effort to get shots into arms.
Millions of dollars are being spent on advertising aimed at easing vaccination fears. But hundreds of millions of people are weighing in online with their opinions on vaccination safety.
Let’s face it, a mass vaccination program is an easy target for self-styled medical experts and paranoid conspiracists. And that’s nothing new. If you were a kid in the 1960s, you remember adults half-joking about how drinking water fluoridation was a Communist plot designed to brainwash Americans rather than reduce tooth decay.
For every 90-year-old woman willing to walk six miles to get vaccinated against COVID-19, there are 10 people sitting around arguing about who should get the vaccine first or claiming it is a gigantic brainwashing plot.
At some point — hopefully, someday soon — vaccinations will assume the status of mask wearing: Most sensible people will get the shot because it is the right thing to do and it is a positive step each one of us can take in order to restore some version of the normal world we remember a year ago.
Someday soon can’t come soon enough.
