One of the lessons we learned during the pandemic was about the collective good.

In the same way that factories in, say, Ohio can cause acid rain that kills fish in the Adirondacks, we learned that infection does not follow state lines or national borders.

COVID-19 spread around the world. And each person’s willingness to follow public-health guidance was crucial to saving others from illness and perhaps death.

We also learned the value of scientific research. Science is not perfect. Hypotheses rise and fall as inquiry persists.

Regular Enterprise readers know that in 2020 and 2021 we covered daily press conferences held by the county executive and phone conferences held by the governor.

We recall how, late in 2020, as Pfizer announced its vaccine had been 90-percent effective in clinical trials with the all-important Phase III testing yet to go how hope beckoned on the horizon. Soon after, Moderna released data saying its COVID-19 vaccine was 94.5-percent effective.

Both vaccines used a new technique with messenger RNA telling the immune system to make antibodies to the spikes on the coronavirus. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease official, said that an average American could potentially have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April of 2021.

President Donald Trump, in his first term, championed those messenger RNA vaccines brought to the finish line through the federal Project Warp Speed.

The seemingly miraculous speed that led to those two new mRNA vaccines being approved in December 2020, allowing lockdowns to be lifted, was really not miraculous at all.

The long road to developing the mRNA vaccines had actually started in 1984 when a group of Harvard scientists used a synthesized RNA enzyme to make biologically active messengerRNA. Three years later, Dr. Robert Malone mixed mRNA with fat droplets and discovered that, when human cells were added to the mixture, they absorbed the mRNA and made proteins.

In the 1990s, researchers tested mRNA as a treatment in rats and as an influenza and cancer vaccine in mice. And so, through the years, the scientific inquiry persisted, resulting in a way to control a worldwide pandemic.

We remember, too, how tired we all felt. The county executive told us he was tired. The county’s health commissioner, whose department has tracked every one of thousands of cases to keep us all safe, said her staff was taxed past its limit.

But then something rather miraculous did happen. The vaccine was made available, free to everyone. Our county executive compared it to the Hunger Games as people vied for the first available shots, which were correctly allocated to the most vulnerable among us.

A core of volunteers coalesced to work with the county health department staffers to administer the shots. People arrived in droves, eager to be protected and finally free.

We recall, here in Guilderland, the Emergency Medical Services crew traveling to the homes of shut-ins to administer the shots.

People pitched in for the common good.

Another lesson we learned during the pandemic was on the importance of data.

Week in and week out, our newspaper reported on the number of COVID cases from each of our school districts and from the county and state reports. This data was essential not just for individuals to know where the virus was spiking but for officials to make wise decisions in protecting us.

But now we find ourselves in an era where, for the current federal government at least, those lessons have been eschewed.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, has cancelled $500 million in messenger RNA research and called the vaccines the “deadliest” ever made.

At the end of August, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated versions of the COVID vaccine, but authorized them only for people 65 and older or for people who have an underlying medical condition; children would need to consult a medical provider to get a shot.

At Kennedy’s recent Senate hearing, Bill Cassidy, the senior senator from Louisianna, a Republican and a physician, put it succinctly when he said: “Effectively, we’re denying people vaccine.”

At that same hearing, senators criticized Kennedy for firing all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel that makes vaccine recommendations, replacing the vetted experts with some who are critical of COVID and other vaccines.

At the hearing, Kennedy said he didn’t know how many Americans died of COVID or whether the vaccines had prevented deaths.

“The problem is they didn’t have the data,” Kennedy said.

Actually, there are reams of data, some of it collected right here in Albany County as well as across New York state, that shows the efficacy of COVID vaccines.

Companies were required by the Food and Drug Administration to submit their data before granting emergency-use authorization for the shots. The companies also published the results of their clinical trials in scientific journals. Independent teams have also analyzed the results at length.

Vaccination, not just to prevent COVID, has been one of the greatest successes of modern science. Diseases like polio and measles have been drastically reduced worldwide and in some nations, like the United States, virtually eliminated.

To keep this momentum going forward, we need to heed the lesson of the collective good.

Stanford Medicine researchers who looked at diseases like measles, polio, diphtheria, and rubella — diseases that have been essentially eliminated in the United States through vaccination — found that, for example, “under current vaccination levels, measles may be likely to return to endemic levels within the next 20 years, driven by states with routine vaccination coverage below historical levels and below the threshold needed to maintain elimination of transmission,” according to their study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April.

Early this month, Florida announced it would become the first state to end all vaccine mandates.

The Florida surgeon general, Joseph A. Ladapo, said at a Sept. 3 press conference with the governor standing by his side, “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? Your body is a gift from God.”

Ladapo said the administration would be “working to end” all vaccine mandates. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

We strongly disagree. People will suffer and die, and not just in Florida, if the mandates are lifted.

Once again, we are grateful we live in New York state where our governor this week issued an executive order declaring a disaster “due to federal actions related to vaccine access.”

The order correctly declares “COVID-19 continues to cause significant morbidity and mortality in children and adults” and “historically COVID-19 surges in the fall and winter months, causing increased morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 concurrent with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, and other seasonal viruses, along with increased absenteeism from school and the workforce, and increased utilization of the hospital system, putting strain on the healthcare workforce, particularly given the coinciding seasons for influenza and RSV.”

The order also correctly notes that actions by the federal government limit availability of the COVID-19 vaccine in a way that is “inconsistent with scientific evidence and the recommendations of respected scientific organizations” causing “confusion amongst providers and patients and posing a threat to public health and safety.”

Further, the order notes, “New Yorkers have overwhelmingly turned to their local pharmacy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to become vaccinated, and in some communities the local pharmacy is the only provider that offers access to the COVID-19 vaccine.”

So the order allows pharmacies to administer COVID vaccines as they did during the height of the pandemic.

It is important to note that Governor Kathy Hochul’s order is in place as a stop-gap measure only until the state legislature reconvenes in January and can craft a permanent solution.

Hochul, who spoke at a Sept. 5 event celebrating free lunches for all students this year, noted that New York lost nearly 86,000 residents to COVID, a number that would have been “exponentially” higher without the vaccine.

She also noted that, right now, New York has about 600 new cases of COVID each day, which, as has been typical over the last five years, grows in the autumn.

Hochul stressed, “If you want your child to have a COVID shot, it should be available to you and it should be covered by insurance …. It's not a mandate for families, but I know a lot of families that want to make sure that their kids are healthy when they’re exposed to other students in school.”

She concluded, “So you can go into a pharmacy and not have to worry about going to a doctor’s office and getting a prescription, which is another step that I think a lot of people just don’t have time in their busy lives to handle.”

We urge our readers to follow that advice not just for their own protection but for their neighbors’ as well.

However, the larger problem remains. While a state like Florida is pushing against vaccination and other states like New York are stepping up to make vaccines accessible, infection does not observe state boundaries or borders.

Rather, we need a federal government that can comprehend the worth of scientific research, understand the use of data, and realize the importance of the collective good.

As Abraham Lincoln so forcefully put it: “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”