Like a tender leaf sprouting from the ash of a fire-scarred forest, good is emerging from the pain and frustration of a difficult year.
This short space cannot capture what we’ve experienced in 2020 — a pandemic, a raucous election with an incomplete presidential transition, catastrophic forest fires, drought, hurricanes, an economic downturn, and urban riots. I can only highlight an example or two in my annual year-end “good, bad, and ugly” column for The Denver Post.
In terms of the bad, nothing else this year eclipses the pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 300,000 Americans including more than 4,000 Coloradans. Families have lost loved ones. Health care workers are exhausted. The impact of the disease and government dictates intended to stem its spread have crushed a thriving economy and left millions unemployed or underemployed. Public school closures and online schooling have diminished learning gains and exacerbated achievement gaps among students.
Sadly, we cannot yet see the full extent of the wreckage. Next year will be lean. We will look back at the often arbitrary and harsh restrictions on businesses with regret as temporary closures turn permanent and former employees head to the unemployment line. As for students, state tests will reveal the deficits begot of a lost year.
Yet out of this tragedy, the ingenuity of our science and medical community shines. In addition to developing better treatments and therapies for those hospitalized with the disease, pharmaceutical companies teamed with our federal agencies have produced vaccines in record time. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines less than a year after scientists sequenced the novel coronavirus’s genome. Scientists, medical personal, and the pharmaceutical companies they work for, and clinical trial volunteers deserve credit for the extraordinary speed with which these vaccines became available. Frankly, so does President Donald Trump for initiating Operation Warp Speed which accelerated the government authorization process and committed billions in taxpayer funds to trials and advanced purchasing.
These two vaccines use groundbreaking new biotechnology. Ordinarily, vaccines work by introducing a weakened or dead virus to the body to trigger an immune defense response. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines introduce a messenger RNA sequence that prompts a person’s cells to produce a protein with the coronavirus’s signature surface spike. The spike proteins which are harmless then trigger an immune defense response. When a vaccinated person comes into contact with the COVID-19 virus, his immune system will recognize the virus’s spikes and mount a defense. Other promising biotechnology, as well as more traditional vaccines, are in the pipeline for next year.
Thus out of the bad, the good is emerging. As for the ugly, who can forget the foul smoke that obscured the mountains throughout the rainless summer? A century of fire suppression produced overly dense pine forests throughout the Rocky Mountains. Too many trees vying for too little water made them more susceptible to beetle infestation. The resultant half dead forests became kindling for a lightning strike. Flames scorched 700,000 acres of Colorado forests. Three of the largest forest fires ever recorded in our state blackened the landscape.
Yet out of the ashes, grew a better-late-than-never recognition for the need for proactive forest management. The government is now allowing dense forests to be thinned and culled through logging. By thinning the pines and making room for more aspen and meadow, our beautiful parklands will be less susceptible to catastrophic fire. This spring, fireweed with its brilliant pink flowers will emerge from the blackened soil, a preview of restoration to come.
We can only hope that just as medical wonders can arise from disease and restoration from a devastating fire, good may yet come from the other troubles we experienced in 2020.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer
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