photograph by Piyapong Thongcharoen / dreamstime
On a string of arctic-chilled, snow-laden February days, Memphians lined up in their cars to receive COVID-19 vaccines. Tips about vaccine availability spread via social media, with anecdotal reports that those who showed up at vaccination sites could get their shot on the spot, even if they had not signed up in advance and even if their place in the vaccine queue had not yet been called. Once the vaccine is loaded into a syringe, it cannot be placed back into storage, so if that syringe isn’t injected into an arm, the dose must be discarded.
That the vaccine roll-out would have been somewhat chaotic was no surprise. Nor was it a surprise that privilege would play a role in the roll-out: Folks not plugged into social media, who don’t have reliable transportation or time off work, or who simply aren’t connected to the ‘right’ people likely had no way of knowing they could show up to get their shot, and no simple way of showing up even if they did learn of the option.
Early in this pandemic, I remember well-meaning declarations (both hearing them and making them myself) about how we were “all in this together.” The reality of the past year tells a very different story. The pandemic has exposed and deepened existing fault lines in our society, and in our city. Unexpected challenges have a way of revealing preexisting inequities. Even the snow falls on Memphians in unequal ways: Were you already working from home when February’s polar express rolled into town? Is that home a comfortable and safe environment? If a pipe burst, could you afford to repair the damage without forgoing other household needs? Many are not so lucky. More Americans slipped into poverty in 2020 than in any other year since the federal government began tracking poverty rates, in 1960. According to a study conducted in late 2020 by the Universities of Chicago and Notre Dame, poverty rates rose at disproportionately high levels among Black Americans, children, and those with a high school education or less. Far too much of this was far too predictable — heartbreakingly so.
Most of us may not be in positions to perfect vaccine distribution, or to fix the economy, or to reopen schools safely. But we can hold our leaders to account. And we can be of service within our communities. That’s hope in action.
But we couldn’t have predicted the details. Only a year ago, few could have imagined the confluence of circumstances we’re experiencing in Memphis as I write. Six inches of snow, more on the way; mercury registering single-digit temperatures for days on end; vaccines of over 90 percent efficacy being distributed against a disease we barely understood? This time last year, we had a vague notion that a potentially scary illness called the novel coronavirus was infecting people young and old, primarily in other parts of the world. We were not so naïve as to think the United States would prove immune, but maybe it wouldn’t be so devastating here? Then Seattle reported the first U.S. COVID-19 death on February 28, 2020. New York registered its first case on March 1, and shutdowns came down like so many dominoes in subsequent days and weeks.
Scientific labs around the world began to develop vaccines over a year ago, when the virus’ genetic sequence was published in January 2020. By any measure, the vaccines are triumphs, boasting high efficacy rates (even, so far, against the virus variants now circulating), lightning-fast development, and a supply chain that needed to be scaled up in record time, in the midst of a pandemic. Estimates of exactly how many Americans have contracted COVID-19 remain hazy, but we’ve either already passed, or soon will pass, the point at which more people will have received at least one dose of vaccine than have had the virus itself. This doesn’t erase the inequities of virus exposure or vaccine distribution, but nonetheless is a distinct measure of progress. Hope feels justifiable again, not simply a choice we make to avoid the alternative — despair — which was pretty much how I treated hope in 2020.
As winter melts into spring, I hope we can do a better job of caring for each other. Most of us may not be in positions to perfect vaccine distribution, or to fix the economy, or to reopen schools safely. But we can hold our leaders to account. And we can be of service within our communities. That’s hope in action.
