January

Approval of the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines by the FDA in mid-December and possibly two more in February does not necessarily represent the beginning of the end. To quote Winston Churchill at the time of the successful conclusion of the Battle of Britain in 1941, having the two vaccines available for administration by the end of 2020 is certainly “the end of the beginning.” In an insightful opinion article in the Dec. 4 edition of The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Tom Frieden, previously a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted the logistic and epidemiologic restraints relating to vaccination in the presence of escalating incidence rates in most states, and elevated hospitalizations and mortality.