I am so tired of always having the pandemic on my mind and constantly modifying or eliminating "normal" behavior to not only stay safe and healthy, but also to demonstrate solidarity with the larger community.
But people should approach life differently during a war, so I persist.
The language of war has been used somewhat loosely when government officials discuss programs and policies to combat the virus, but the "war effort" does not seem to be uniting people against a common threat. In fact, millions and millions of Americans are finding they can't even agree on the enemy.
But today I saw this story about Merck and Johnson & Johnson agreeing to work together to up the amount of the newly approved J&J one-shot vaccine. Merck's own vaccine ideas didn't work out, but the company has lots of production capacity and pausing the competitive nature of pharmaceutical companies makes perfect sense.
In a real war effort (like WWII), there would be no competition between, say, tank manufacturing companies. The competition would have been with the enemy and in blasting past previous limits on how many tanks or planes or guns or tires could be churned out each day.
The 1940s were not some paradise, now lost, and people treated one another at least as poorly as they do today. But that concept of suspending rivalries and striving for riches that allowed Fortress America to be created almost overnight is what is missing from our current "war."
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