Last week, we would have loved to pack some presents, jump in the car, and drive to the Midwest so we could sit down with the kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, but we didn't.

Like lots of our friends and neighbors, we dined by ourselves.

I know some folks claimed COVID-19 would disappear right after the election. Well, that didn't happen. I am not going to cite the latest numbers for you. They are all over the daily papers, the TV, the internet, and even my favorite newspapers, The Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper.

I have a relative who explained that COVID-19 was just like a cold. I wish it were. Last week, we listened to NPR as experts delivered the best news of the season – that Big Pharma is on the way to producing a safe and effective vaccine. Two of their candidates passed clinical trials with a 90% effectiveness rate. FDA approval is expected soon.

The not so good news is that these vaccines must be refrigerated at a temperature so low it ranks somewhere between the surface of the moon and the North Pole. I suppose this will be a problem for our local providers, but as the government is paying most of the vaccine's freight, they will figure a way to store and deliver it.

My gray-haired pals remember one of the last big health scares: Polio. Scientists discovered the poliovirus was spread by fecal matter that found its way into ponds, brooks and other waterways. I can remember walking along the banks of an urban creek that was a repository of raw sewage. The local board of health had put up signs warning us to stay out of the water. Of course, the neighborhood boys never, ever played in and around the creek. At least that was what we told our parents.

The banks of the creek featured several huge concrete sewer outlets. During a major rainstorm, the sewers would fill, and the resulting water pressure would force the large steel lids open, flushing raw sewage into the stream. Ironically, the name of that creek is Pleasant Run.

In April 1955, our local paper's headline barked "Polio stopped." The story told how Dr. Jonas Salk had discovered a vaccine that prevented polio. In some towns, that news triggered the ringing of church bells.

No one thinks about polio today, but back then, the infectious disease attacked young and old, killing three to five thousand each year. In some cases, it caused severe weakness in the limbs and other organs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of its victims. He had to wear steel and leather braces to stand up. Sometimes the poliovirus attacked the central nervous system. In the most severe cases, doctors put the patient in a full-body chamber called an iron lung that used air pressure to stimulate their breathing. Without it, they would die.

I interviewed a senior research physician at Big Pharma and asked him to tell me his most memorable moment in medicine. He paused for a moment, then told me how he wheeled the last (empty) iron lung down the (hospital) corridor, put it in the closet, and no one ever got it out again.

In 1960, Dr. Albert Sabin discovered another vaccine, that was delivered orally. Thanks to the work of scientists like Salk and Sabin, polio, a disease that killed kids and terrified parents worldwide, is nearly gone from the Earth.

Scientists tell us we could have a COVID-19 vaccine next month or so. Today, it is no secret that thousands of our fellow citizens don't trust science, scientists, or the vaccines they develop. Some mothers don't trust the standard vaccines used to protect their infants from deadly childhood diseases.

Over Thanksgiving dinner, my bride and I talked over the pros and cons of both the virus and a possible vaccine. Statistics say the elderly are most likely to catch a fatal case of COVID-19. The most vulnerable of all are those with a severe underlying health condition.

As we live in one of the oldest communities in one of the oldest counties in the oldest state in the U.S., many of our friends and neighbors are in the same category. You can count us in the yes category. As soon as Dr. Tony Fauci says the vaccine is safe and effective, we will roll up our sleeves and stand in line.

Will you?