On or about January of this tumultuous year, a horrible plague was loosed on our society. It visited Seattle, NYC and far and wide around the globe. It infected far too many and killed over 250,000 U.S. citizens and over a million around the world. It caused society to hunker down. It caused anxiety throughout the world as small municipalities, larger cities, counties and countries large and small attempted to come to grips with this scourge. Sadly, too, there came to be a political side to this horrible story.
Now it is November, and there has come to be better news. First, from the pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer. Then a much smaller company, Moderna. Both companies have produced vaccine candidates that promise 95 percent success at preventing COVID-19. The success of these two companies means there may be as many as 40 million doses of the vaccine available by the end of December and in the hundreds of millions of doses by Spring 2021.
And on Sunday, Nov. 22, there came a clarion call from the chief vaccinologist in charge of the skillful effort that delivered the two vaccine candidates. Dr. Marcel Slaoui stated that there will likely be herd immunity (in the U.S.) achieved by May 2021.
Therefore, as we approach “official” Thanksgiving, I offer this proposition to America. In honor of the great news from Dr. Slaoui about herd immunity being achieved by May, I hereby recommend a new holiday – a heartfelt Thanksgiving Day be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of May; not only in the U.S. but, perhaps, all around the world. All of the scientists and all the techs and all of their families should be celebrated. They are the modern-day pilgrims/explorers who have helped deliver to our interconnected societies a healthy and (hopefully) prosperous “new world.”
