Why are governments pushing the vaccine? Because it is the only thing that works so far. It is about the critical balance of supply and demand. Not for the vaccine, but for the medical support system. The medical support system is built around an average daily need, not a pandemic. After all, who can predict pandemics and why would you build hospitals to be empty, and train doctors to be idle, waiting to be needed for a emergency that may be years or decades away?

If Covid would simply kill a person in a day or two after being infected, there wouldn’t be a problem. Mass graves are easy to make. But Covid patients get sick and linger. The one needing the hospital can stay for weeks, tying up the resources, so that the normal daily users can’t use the resources. We saw that at the beginning of the pandemic and we are seeing it again in areas of the USA.

Masks and social distancing worked only for so long. I am imaging that governments are hoping that vaccines will work longer, buying more time for a better solution. Image if a country’s entire medical support system became overrun and then having easily treatable sick people not being able to get help. Yes we are living in a time of amazing technology, with great insight and knowledge, but we are still the same frail humans we were thousands of years ago. Technology will only help if you can access it.

So I think that what drives governments today is keeping the medical supply lines open, using whatever tools are available today and then wait to do battle with the future when the future arrives.