Viewpoints: Make Vaccine Trials Transparent To Gain Trust; Only COVID Made Voting, Trump Vulnerable

Stat: Transparency Is Needed For Covid-19 Vaccine Trials 
With vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, on the near-term horizon, U.S. policymakers are focusing on how to ensure that Americans get vaccinated. This challenge has been compounded by reports that White House officials are exerting undue influence over the agencies that would ordinarily lead such efforts, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Jennifer E. Miller, Joseph S. Ross and Michelle M. Mello, 11/5)

The Wall Street Journal: The Covid-19 Election
We are in this mess for one reason: the Covid-19 pandemic. If it hadn’t been for Covid, this would have been a normal election, with Donald Trump’s policy record producing a second term and rioting in the streets. Some may say political rioting isn’t normal, but it has become routine for progressive Democrats since Mr. Trump won four years ago. The coronavirus produced the two things that are the cause of the mess we’re in this week: a Trump vulnerability for Joe Biden to run on, and the mail-in voting fiasco. (Daniel Henninger, 11/4)

The Hill: Was It Faulty Science Or Ethnocentrism That Worsened The Pandemic? 
As the number of COVID-19 patients alarmingly rises once again, Americans push into a new season of the pandemic that has claimed 228,000 lives. In tragic form, health professionals and scientists are estimating that perhaps as many as 210,000 lives could have been spared had the country implemented better testing protocols and appropriate risk reduction strategies early on. (John A. Gronbeck-Tedesco, 11/4)

Stat: The Hidden Public Health Hazard Of Rapid Covid-19 Tests 
Rapid Covid-19 tests are being deployed by the millions across the nation. The federal government is sending these tests, which can provide results in minutes, to states for educators, students, nursing home patients, first responders, and other sites. That’s a good thing. But in a rush to get individual test results, we’re making a dangerous public health mistake: We’re losing critical data about Covid-19. (Joia Crear-Perry, 11/5)

The Washington Post: Revealing Prince William’s Coronavirus Illness Would Have Been A Public Service 
Keeping calm and carrying on was the wrong move. Despite his illness, William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, connected virtually to several royal duties in April. But when William went to a pub in July to promote reopening from Britain’s first pandemic lockdown, he did not wear a mask. He has gone maskless at other events, including when he joined his 94-year-old grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, last month for her first appearance in public since March. (During their visit to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in southern England, the royals met with scientists participating in the U.K. coronavirus response.) A palace spokesman said that social distancing guidelines were followed and that everyone expected to encounter the queen had been tested for covid. That’s the same strategy the White House has employed for those encountering the president — and that didn’t prevent him from catching the virus. (Autumn Brewington, 11/3)

The Detroit News: Will Overseas Developments Cause COVID-19 Vaccine Tourism?
COVID-19 has brought so many new and difficult choices into people’s lives, and now there is another one, particularly for well-to-do Americans: If a vaccine were not yet available in the U.S., would you fly to another country to get it?It is now possible to have a decent sense of which nation is winning the vaccine race, and it is not the U.S. A Chinese vaccine is being distributed now, and so far it seems to be safe and modestly effective. The data are not sufficiently clear that you ought to get one now, but it is easy to imagine that in another month or two the Chinese vaccine will be a plausible option. (Tyler Cowen, 11/4)

The New York Times: Americans, Stop Being Ashamed Of Weakness 
Unfortunately, studies show that stroke patients’ networks tend to contract in the wake of a stroke. Why? The causes are not perfectly clear, but we can say this: Too often in America, we are ashamed of being weak, vulnerable, dependent. We tend to hide our shame. We stay away. We isolate ourselves, rather than show our weakness. (Ian Marcus Corbin, 11/5)

The Salt Lake Tribune: Health Care Workers Deserve Our Respect  
To slander people risking everything to protect and care for us is unconscionable. Doctors and nurses here in Utah are about to be stuck in a hell most of us can’t imagine as COVID-19 cases overwhelm hospitals. This was an indefensible moment that should leave the entire country outraged and supporters who brush off these presidential mendacities deeply ashamed. (Paul Gibbs, 11/4)

Tallahassee Democrat: COVID-19 Alternate History: Pandemic Could Have Turned Out Different
The next few weeks will be marked by the grim reality of the rapidly worsening COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. It's been almost a year that we live in a COVID reality, seeing our parents grow older and our friends' kids get taller through a black screen. We have been robbed of a year's worth of life and experiences, but could it have been different? For the next few minutes, forget you are in November 2020. (Leo Nissola, 11/4)