Letter to the Editor: We Have Been to the Moon. We Will Beat the Coronavirus

There now have been more than 1 million confirmed victims of the coronavirus in the United States, more than 60,000 of whom have perished. While this tragedy would have been far worse without social distancing and other protective measures, it is a far cry from the early White House estimate of a mere 15 cases dwindling rapidly down to zero.

Of secondary but still very significant importance is the decline of economic vitality. The contraction of gross domestic product and the disappearance of jobs likely will be the worst since the 1930s, essentially beyond living memory. Through no fault of their own, thousands of businesses that have bolted their doors and boarded up their storefronts may never reopen.

Even some of the largest and most established firms are endangered. The mighty Boeing Company, Seattle’s gift to the world for over a century, is in a corkscrew tailspin as airlines shred their schedules and would-be passengers shelter at home.

Economics is a study of numbers, and the numbers for Boeing require an air-sickness bag. Of the 11,009 Boeing passenger planes in worldwide service, 6,614 currently are mothballed, empty and abandoned on deserted runways. The company already was depleted by the 737 MAX debacle, and likely will have to downsize drastically and plead for a federal bailout.

On the positive side, a herculean effort is underway across the globe to develop vaccines and other therapies that would eviscerate this vile menace. While medical research is among the most worthwhile and admirable of human quests, it also is among the most expensive and exasperating.

Progress requiring miles often is measured in inches, and the vast majority of efforts end in disappointment.

But it was the belief of Albert Einstein, a renowned genius whose contributions to science weremonumental, that “the important thing is to not stop questioning.”  Efforts that frustrate can open doors to eventual triumph. If the coronavirus is without precedent, its eradication would be without parallel.

In a speech at Rice University in Houston in 1962, President Kennedy exalted the Apollo program, the enormously ambitious endeavor “to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth.”

Said Kennedy:  “We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. But man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. Surely, the opening vistas of space promise high cost and hardship, as well as high reward. And, therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”

We have been to the Moon. We will beat the coronavirus.

Joseph Tipler

Centralia