Lori Falce: Lent, vaccines and keeping the faith

When Ash Wednesday next week starts the Lenten season, 40 days of faith and fasting leading toward Easter, you won’t have to be Catholic to be part of it all. The no-meat-on-Fridays ritual will mean that fish-fry fundraisers and restaurant seafood menus will give everyone a little glimpse of what it was like to eat in a parochial school cafeteria.

But there will be something familiar about it. Fish on Fridays might be the rule for Lent, but it’s still pretty common the rest of the year. Eat‘n Park’s Friday soup of the day is always clam chowder. Plenty of restaurants around here spotlight seafood on Fridays regardless what time of year it is.

Why? Because a lot of Catholics still keep to that plan, which was the requirement up until 1966. That was when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops changed the rule from abstaining from meat every Friday for anyone over 7 to just during Lent and only for those over 14.

In my day, which was the late 1970s and early 1980s, the John F. Kennedy Catholic Grade School cafeteria in Washington, Pa., served tuna noodle casserole or grilled cheese and tomato soup every Friday, August to June. Did the nuns at my school not know that the rules were changed? Seems unlikely.

No, it was more like hedging a bet. Do we have to stay meat-free in a non-Lent month like January? Maybe not, but hey, what’s it hurt? It might not be an out-and-out distrust of the new directive, but it does kind of point to a better-safe-than-sorry attitude.

It’s the same kind of thing we see now with some health care providers. The Biden administration’s coronavirus response team said this month that some are reserving supplies of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to administer a second dose to patients who have already received their first shot, rather than following directives to use up all of their supplies for first doses.

“We want to be clear that we understand why health care providers have done that, but that it does not need to happen and should not happen,” CNBC quoted senior adviser Andy Slavitt.

Pennsylvania is dealing with shortages of the vaccine even while some people are lobbying for more groups to receive the shot and others are pushing to roll back restrictions.

What might be needed — heading toward a time of reverent reflection and thoughtful preparation — is a little bit of faith.

The problem is that requires faith in the government, and that’s never an easy sell. It is understandable some providers may be concerned that today’s advice to administer all of the supplies may conflict with some future directive to do otherwise.

But sometimes you just have to accept that the authorities have given their blessing for a course of action, and go with it.

In December, the British Medical Journal was reporting that the Pfizer vaccine was 52% effective after one dose, which was 52% better than no dose. Since then, the researchers have updated their information. That first dose is showing 90% effectiveness after three weeks. The numbers should be more reassuring than bureaucratic recommendation.

Still, the best thing the government can do is help providers overcome the issue by giving them the red meat they crave and helping them solve their supply problems. On Thursday, President Biden announced a deal for 200 million doses to be purchased.

Until those arrive, though, the government has to understand if it all seems like a Lenten lunch special — sounds good but a little fishy.