Friday December 11, 2020
Well, it’s finally happened. The CDC has approved the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine and the Moderna version goes before the CDC panel next week. Health care workers are on tier one level to receive the vaccine as they should be. It is critical that political pull not be the way the vaccine is distributed. Transparency and ethical decision making should be paramount.
Ethical considerations are all the more important in the light of a New York Times story that politics played a significant role in obtaining scarce drugs as treatment for certain public figures to the detriment of others who needed these drugs. One recipient of the scarce medication even boasted about his celebrity status as the primary factor in his treatment.
As vaccines against this dread disease become available, our national leadership must act with transparency and ethical judgment so that getting the vaccine does not become a political issue like mask wearing. Public health is too important for this generation and the next.
Prayer for the Day
Confessing our fears and our faults, we come to you, O God,
For we are afraid of the tasks to which we are called;
Knowing that the poor are left in their poverty and the afflicted in their pain,
We are often content to leave your demands for others to fill.
Forgive us, O God, and erase the habits of our uncaring,
And transform our words into action as you call us to do.
In the name of the Transformer of our lives,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And, above all, it takes a willingness to try.
- Atul Gawande, M.D., Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston
Truth tells us how the world is; morality tells us how it ought to be.
- Susan Neiman, American philosopher
Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry; giv ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.
From you let my vindication come, let your eyes see the right.
Psalm 17: 1-2