Vaccine: Fast, but not as fast as 1957

Re: “On vaccine, Biden should give credit to Trump,”(TNT, Marc A. Thiessen column, 12/20).

I suppose we must “give the devil his due” for providing funding and, for once, getting out of the way of the folks in the lab.

However, his Warp Speed project wasn’t as fast as that of Maurice Hilleman, who predicted the pandemic of Asian flu (an earlier viral “gift” from China) would reach the US in September 1957.

In April, Hilleman obtained a virus specimen from a Navy man infected in Hong Kong. By June four manufacturers were making vaccine, and by September 40 million doses were ready to go.

Our population was 172 million, so there wasn’t enough vaccine for everybody. However, enough people got it to hold our death rate to between 70,000 and 114,000. Worldwide the toll was just over one million deaths.

Google “Hilleman” and “1957-58 flu epidemic.” It’s quite a story.

Why do I remember that bug so well? I didn’t get a shot, and I sure did get that flu. It steamrolled my healthy, 14-year-old self for two weeks.

The school make-up work (including 10 days of algebra assignments) was terrible! Almost as bad as the flu.

This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Vaccine: Fast, but not as fast as 1957."