Laying the groundwork for peace

When the World Health Organization declared in March 2020 that the corona­virus had become a global pandemic, researchers and public health experts around the world kicked into high gear to develop treatments for and a vaccine against COVID-19.

Research into using mRNA (messenger RNA) to develop vaccines has been going on for more than 30 years. According to a Harvard Medical School blog from December 2020, several companies used these decades of experience to provide a platform that might be “used to create a vaccine for any infectious disease simply by inserting the right mRNA sequence for that disease.”

Within weeks of identifying the responsible virus for COVID-19, scientists had determined its genetic structure and published it on the Internet. “Within minutes, scientists 10,000 miles away began working on the design of an mRNA vaccine,” the blog reported.

Now, a little more than a year later, we are working our way out of the long fight against COVID-19, thanks to international cooperation. Scientists and researchers, nurses and doctors, along with public health experts have made it so that as many people as possible can get the vaccines, and the results are allowing us greater freedom than we had just a few months ago.

It’s not perfect, however. India, which actually manufactures much of the vaccine for itself and other countries, cannot keep up with demand, and the results are telling, as people are dying there in record numbers.

Meanwhile, in the United States, some people refuse the vaccine, even though it’s readily available. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we are making progress.

Imagine if we put in similar efforts on rooting out gun violence.

Each year, the United States sees about 40,000 total deaths involving guns – about 20,000-25,000 of these are deaths by suicide, but some 15,000-20,000 are from other homicides. Even during the pandemic, with more people staying at or near home, the number of gun homicides was much higher than any of the past six years.

Just as some Baltimore neighborhoods were coronavirus hot spots, so too, some are gun violence hot spots.

The recent incident in Woodlawn where a man set his home ablaze and shot three neighbors before being shot and killed by police tears at our hearts. We cannot ignore mental health issues in any reasonable discussion about guns. Nor can we avoid discussing the effects of poverty, drugs and systemic racism in the violence that takes too many lives. But answers are out there, if we can make an all-out effort to find them.

Imagine also if we put the same effort that has characterized the pandemic response into achieving world peace, or addressing climate change, or alleviating poverty in general.

The Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting for decades in an area about 85 percent of the size of the state of Maryland. The roots of the Arab-Israeli struggle are many and deep. After reciting the “Regina Coeli” prayer May 16 in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis launched an appeal for calm and asked leaders of both sides “to put a stop to the roar of weapons and to follow the paths of peace, even with the help of the international community.”

The growing hatred and violence in different cities in Israel “is a serious wound to fraternity and to peaceful coexistence among citizens, which will be difficult to heal if we do not open immediately to dialogue,” he said, according to Catholic News Service. The pope asked, “Where will hatred and vengeance lead? Do we really think we can build peace by destroying the other?”

The response to the coronavirus pandemic has shown that we humans are resourceful enough to address a crisis when motivated – working together across boundaries and cultures.

What will it take to put the same effort into solving our other crises and end the atrocities of urban violence, war, climate change and poverty?

Email Christopher Gunty at editor@CatholicReview.org

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