Can we just stop and appreciate the state of the vaccine?

[dreamshark]

Yes, the pandemic saga has taken a grim turn this month, but can we just take a moment to give a big HOORAY for Science here?  It's less than a year since the outbreak began, and in this country alone we have not one but two highly effective vaccines on the threshold of release! Worldwide there are dozens under development and several that have already been deployed (albeit with varying degrees of safety protocols).

This is not like the dreary old flu vaccine which is just the same old thing each year tweaked to work (minimally well) against the new strains. There are multiple types of vaccine under development, some of them (like the two on the verge of release in the US right now) using brand new technologies. And it's not just the same old Big Pharma controlling the development and supply. Sure, Pfizer is big, but Moderna is a "biotech upstart" marketing its first vaccine. 

And vaccines aside, virologists and immunologists and epidemiologists around the world have probably learned more about how viruses work and how diseases spread in the past year than in the previous 30. This is exciting! 

Comments

[quadong]

Stopped and appreciated. I didn't think they were going to manage that. Now, let's try for some improvements in long-term planning, infrastructure, and public health ahead of the next pandemic.

[davidwilford]

I'd settle for less lunacy. My neighbor is on the St. Croix County Board of Commissioners and last month forwarded me a link to an audio recording from a meeting of the public health committee where seemingly every nut in the county came to denounce the dire threat to their freedom that any public health restrictions would pose. Yet they still drive the speed limit... I think. It's nice to think of sensible public heath measures, yet when confronted with such resistance to reality I wonder how much good it would do.

[quadong]

They drive the speed limit? I have seen very few people who do that. Mostly people seem to think it's a game to drive as fast as possible without being caught, and as far as I can tell believe traffic laws are just there to oppress them, drawing no connection to safety. Seems very similar how the same people approach the pandemic.