Here’s a safe prediction for the new year: 2021 will end better than it started. Maybe not in all areas of your life, but COVID should be under control. We can shake hands, eat out (and in), attend church, and get together with 100,000 close friends at a football game. First, we’ve got to get shot, a vaccine shot.

Back in the Spring, the Trump Administration designed a plan to have a vaccine by December, and Congress funded it. (Actually, Trump wanted it before November 3.) The naysayers poked fun at the optimistic goal, claiming it would take 3 to 5 years for a successful vaccine.

Well, by golly, the great scientists at pharmaceutical companies jumped on it and we’ve got a few million doses before Christmas. And now, as the same naysayers eagerly point out, several states have a bottleneck. With all the medical staff overloaded with hospital patients, there aren’t enough folks to give the shots.

I’ve got a solution. Now I don’t claim to be a doctor, but I did play one in a movie (“Doctor Bull,” 1933). Here’s my plan: contact all the students in medical, pharmaceutical and nursing schools and have them report to their local hospital or pharmacy. They’re at home on break, so they will be eager to help. One of the first skills these students learn is how to give shots, so a few hours of training with these COVID vaccines and they’re ready to go. Assign 10 or 12 to an experienced professional, line ‘em up, and invite the locals, and shoot ‘em. Make sure the old folks get the vaccines, but don’t block out others. The “bottleneck” would be eliminated in a couple of weeks.

Are you wondering, what does an old comedian know about shots? Well, I called a nurse in West Virginia who says this plan makes sense. She helped the state be the first in the country to get all the nursing homes vaccinated.

I think another hint of 2021 being a good year is that Congress is pretty much tied. No matter which way Georgia votes, Congress is split down the middle.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“Washington, D. C. papers say: ‘Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.’ I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.” WA #59, Jan. 27, 1924