“Wait for a vaccine” was the advice from political leaders back in the early days of COVID-19. “Sign up and get vaccinated” is the advice less than a year later. 

While some state governments, including Washington, kept economies, schools and social life shut down for a year or more, the global pharmaceutical industry and private businesses everywhere worked diligently to bring our communities back to life. Capitalism is defeating COVID-19, spurred on by then-President Trump’s bold “Warp Speed” initiative.  

The role governments played — and in some ways didn’t play — was also key. 

On the national level, getting out of the way and busting through bureaucratic interference allowed oft-vilified “Big Pharma” to refine costly and diligent work on vaccines that had been in the works for more than a decade. As Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, wrote in “Pharma deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for the covid vaccines,” these private-sector teams of scientists deserve the world’s gratitude for making these “savior vaccines” happen so fast.  

Here in Washington state, unnecessary regulations were temporarily cut and patients were able to receive medical care in more ways than before the pandemic. Lawmakers should make those forward-looking changes permanent and further allow patient-centered, rather than government-controlled, health-care services.  

In January, the state announced a public-private partnership to get thousands of vaccine doses that were sitting around the state delivered to people who need them.   

“I just did the math, and figured out at this [current slow] rate of vaccination, it's going to take six, seven, eight years for this country to get vaccinated," said Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks, representing one of the handful of businesses that came to Washington state’s rescue.  

By accepting the offers from private businesses to tackle vaccine organization, messaging and distribution that state government could not supply in a timely manner, about 3.3 million Covid vaccine doses have been administered statewide as of March 31, the same day Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he's relaxing eligibility requirements to include everyone age 16 and older, beginning April 15. More than one million people in Washington are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, reports the state Department of Health. 

Before the public-private partnership, we lagged far behind other states, and less than half the state's available vaccines had been administered to people. 

This week, Boeing announced that it is supporting a new Auburn vaccination site. That adds to a partnership it has with Snohomish County’s Vaccine Task Force and a clinic located in the Boeing Everett Activity Center. That site has seen 20,000 vaccines administered. 

An innovative, free market-based environment for health care is promising. Those on the Left often tout socialism as an answer to our health-care woes, but it is capitalism that’s offering us a good shot at defeating COVID-19.