John Cornyn: “it has been more than a year now since the first COVID-19 case was confirmed here in the United States. As the war…”

“it has been more than a year now since the first COVID-19 case was confirmed here in the United States. As the war against this virus has been fought, it has evolved over the last 12 months, and our country has been challenged like never before in my memory. Healthcare workers across the country have heroically battled this cruel virus, often with insufficient equipment and personnel. Frontline workers in delivery trucks, grocery stores, and other essential businesses have kept the cogs of society running. As a whole, we have hunkered down and tried to stop the spread of the virus until enough Americans could get vaccinated. We all have come to realize that is really the gold standard in defeating this virus. The Trump administration launched Operation Warp Speed to accelerate the research and development of therapeutics and vaccines to move us toward that goal as soon as possible. Just last summer, when President Trump predicted we would have an effective vaccine by the end of the year, there was some serious skepticism--and you might even call it blowback--from some of the critics. One media outlet published a fact check saying it would require nothing short of a ``medical miracle'' to have a vaccine by the end of last year. Thanks to the leadership on a bipartisan basis here and the marvels of science and human ingenuity, that so-called miracle came true not once but twice, and we are expecting more vaccines to eventually be approved in the near term.…”