If there was any doubt whether the novel coronavirus has become political, it was answered Wednesday by the two competing candidates for the office of president of the United States.
And the loser, as usual, was the American people.
On the one hand was the Democratic candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, who attempted to cast doubt on the efficacy of any vaccine for the virus delivered under the administration of President Donald Trump.
On the other was the president, who continues to tease the possibility of a vaccine and its rollout before Election Day, when experts say that would be nearly impossible.
Look, there's no question why both men are doing what they're doing. Biden wants to hammer on the only predicament throughout Trump's term that seems to have stuck to him, though it may be the only one he didn't help create. Trump wants to counter that by being able to tell voters how astonishingly quick a vaccine was developed and will be distributed, no matter what anyone thinks about his handling of the virus up to now.
But, we reiterate, what about the American people?
Let's acknowledge up front that this country has never dealt with a pandemic quite like the novel coronavirus, so there was no ready-made playbook to pull out of the files on the perfect way to handle it.
We know now that Trump acted on the best information given by the government's top public health and infectious disease experts in the early weeks of the virus, but we also know now that they were wrong on the virus's ability to spread.
The president, in the middle of the impeachment wind-down, was doing what he always does - put either the best face or the worst face on an issue. On this issue, acting as the CEO he has been for years, he put the best face on the virus. We believe he believed it could be contained, especially with the knowledge that no recent pandemic had hit the country's shores.
It couldn't.
Then came the frightening predictions of potential deaths (more than 2.2 million in mid-March), the to-mask or not-to-mask controversies (the country's best experts had mixed opinions) and the shut-down or don't-shut-down debates (again, there was no unanimity).
In time, Americans, who suddenly went from the best economy in years to being out of work, had to sort out potential help from various questionable antidotes, the when-to-open disputes, the panned we-want-to-work protests and the praised police-use-of-excessive-force protests.
Then came disagreements about church re-openings (some did, some didn't), school re-openings (protocols over which may change weekly), and the sporadic continuation of pro and college sports.
Now we have the vaccine disputes.
On Wednesday, Biden again tried to cast doubts - by threading a needle - about the science-first project the Trump administration implemented to develop a virus vaccine. The Democratic nominee said he trusts vaccines and he trust scientists, "but I don't trust Donald Trump."
Of course you don't get the vaccine without the science, and the head of the president's vaccine project has stated he would resign if he thought the administration was suggesting the project, named Operation Warp Speed, do something that would endanger lives.
No, this is Biden's desperate attempt to continue to sow virus confusion in the American people. The fact that he would say things that undermine a potential vaccine is mean-spirited and pathetic.
In Trump's words, and we believe he's right: Biden is "recklessly endangering lives."
And speaking of confusion, Biden changed his mind once again Wednesday about a mask mandate. In just over a month, he called for a mandate, backed off it by saying, "I don't think constitutionally [the government] could" issue a mandate, and then said "our legal team thinks I can do that."
How does a man who's still confused after all these months about whether a mandate could be issued criticize the president on any virus matter?
But then there's Trump, who said Wednesday his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief was wrong when he said a vaccine won't be widely available until well into 2021. Many experts have said a vaccine could be ready late in the year but are not claiming one will be perfected, and might be distributed, by Election Day, as Trump seems to hope.
Like Biden trying to depress hopes, the president is trying buoy hopes. Neither is doing the right thing.
In a less partisan time, one might imagine a president calling his opponent, laying out his experts' predictions, the two conferring over how best to move forward, meeting the media together, and the two saying they would never agree on most other issues, but the American people should know they were united on the best steps to combat a global pandemic.
Instead, we have the same confusion over the virus we've had since late winter - just different aspects of it. And the candidates continue to play politics.