It is the news that every living soul on the planet has been wishing, hoping, and praying for since March: There may be a vaccine that prevents COVID-19 on the near horizon.

…may.

According to a breaking news report by Linda A Johnson and Lauran Neergaard of The Associated Press released early Monday morning, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has developed and is actively testing a vaccine that appears to prevent contracting the deadly virus.

“We’re in a position potentially to be able to offer some hope,” Pfizer senior vice president of clinical development Dr. Bill Gruber told AP. “We’re very encouraged.”

To date, COVID-19 has killed more than 1.2 million people worldwide, including almost a quarter-million in the U.S. alone – numbers that will absolutely positively increase drastically before this – or any other – vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration and available in quantities large enough for worldwide distribution.

Rather than overwhelm you with the details of the report, I encourage you to check out the AP article at your leisure. But it’s the potential impact that it could have on Major League Baseball – and every other ‘socially-distant’ gathering – that could … could get things relatively back to normal for baseball fans, perhaps even as early as the 2021 MLB season, which is tentatively scheduled to begin in early March. Whether or not this actually happens very much remains to be seen.

One very obvious concern for team owners is, of course, how will they know who has (or has not) been vaccinated, which Pfizer says is a two-injection process? If the miracle vaccine is indeed effective in preventing contracting the virus, those who have not yet been vaccinated are still very much at risk. Keep in mind that this is a preventative vaccine against COVID-19, not a cure for it.

Regardless, this is very much welcome news that can be life-changing.

…just as COVID-19 itself is/was.

Play Ball!

  *  *  *  *  *  *