{"id":13057,"date":"2021-03-29T17:43:21","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T00:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=13057"},"modified":"2021-03-29T17:43:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T00:43:28","slug":"hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths-averted-because-of-covid-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths-averted-because-of-covid-vaccines\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of thousands of deaths averted because of COVID vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recall the desperate early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in early Spring 2020. Researchers worried that the Spanish flu of 1918 that cost millions of American lives could be a possible&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/flu\/pandemic-resources\/1918-commemoration\/three-waves.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">model<\/a>. The Imperial College of London released a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-020-01003-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">projection<\/a>&nbsp;of over 2 million deaths in the U.S. alone if government failed to take action. The government\u2019s top advisor,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/people\/anthony-fauci\">Anthony Fauci<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/flatten-curve-coronavirus.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recommended<\/a>&nbsp;a strategy of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) to \u201cbend the curve.\u201d However, the highly infectious nature of the disease meant that they could offer only a temporary respite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adding to the gloom was the scientific community\u2019s pessimism concerning the prospects for an early vaccine. Past history suggested that vaccines required&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/white-house\/544175-getting-the-facts-right-on-operation-warp-speed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">years<\/a>&nbsp;to get through regulatory approval \u2014 and then an additional year or more to scale-up for the millions of doses needed. Four months into the pandemic in the Spring of 2020, the most optimistic observers projected that we were well more than a year away from a viable vaccination program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contrary to earlier&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/white-house\/544175-getting-the-facts-right-on-operation-warp-speed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">expectations<\/a>, two vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) were approved in December 2020, and the first doses were administered less than a week later. These advances occurred under the auspices of Operation Warp Speed, a joint government, business, and military venture. Its unique feature was to guarantee purchases of experimental vaccines as they proceeded through regulatory approval in order to scale-up quickly the successful ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/healthcare\/545214-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths-averted-because-of-covid-vaccines\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill Recall the desperate early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in early Spring 2020. Researchers worried that the Spanish flu of 1918 that cost millions of American lives could be a possible&nbsp;model. The Imperial College of London released a&nbsp;projection&nbsp;of over 2 million deaths in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3oB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12313,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/yes-california-remains-mysterious-despite-the-weaponization-of-the-debate\/","url_meta":{"origin":13057,"position":0},"title":"Yes, California Remains Mysterious \u2014 Despite the Weaponization of the Debate","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review California\u00a0is touchy, and yet still remains confused, about incomplete data showing that the 40-million-person state, as of Sunday, April 12, reportedly had 23,777 cases of residents who have tested posted for the COVID-19 illness. 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I also do not mean that as a contrarian, but, after all, we are\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12366,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/unbearable-truths-about-our-current-political-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":13057,"position":4},"title":"Unbearable Truths About Our Current Political Moment","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Sometimes the truth is like mythical kryptonite. It radiates power and yet promises great destruction. And so reality is to be left alone, encased in lead, and kept at bay. Take the Chinese genesis of the COVID-19 epidemic. We started in February with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13081,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/optimism-inc\/","url_meta":{"origin":13057,"position":5},"title":"Optimism Inc","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers THE MORE PESSIMISTIC the CDC, Dr. Fauci, and the Biden Administration sound on the pandemic, the more cautiously optimistic I become, albeit as a non-medical observer of the pandemic. 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