American history is about outcomes. Will we pass the covid-19 test?

It comes as a surprise because history’s verdict is determined by the outcome. Likewise, the history of the covid-19 pandemic will be more interested in how the battle ends than in how it got started. In that respect, the fight begins now. History will elide many of the missteps of last winter provided that we make a better showing from now on. Take, for example, the fiasco of the face coverings. When the novel coronavirus emerged, hospital managers immediately worried they would run short of personal protective equipment, including face masks. To protect existing supplies, authorities assured the public that we’d be fine without masks. That was a mistake. Masks have proved to be the first line of defense, along with social distancing and clean hands. Even on the cusp of a vaccine, these simple measures are not only our best options against the pandemic; they continue to be the only ones available to engage the nation to meet this challenge. The vaccine is coming, but the crisis is already here. History’s account of Americans in this pandemic will focus on what we do starting now. Our lack of leadership has been depressing. But we’ve learned enough through these past nine months to make up for absent leadership by exercising citizenship. It’s not Normandy. It’s not Gettysburg. But this is what history demands today. There is just enough time — just barely — left for us to pass the test. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/american-history-is-about-outcomes-will-we-pass-the-covid-19-test/2020/12/08/d39b6fb6-397b-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html

The moral hypocrisy of conservative leaders is stunning

The intellectual bankruptcy and moral hypocrisy of many conservative leaders is stunning. People who claimed to favor limited government now applaud Trump’s use of the executive branch to undermine an election. A similar attempt by Barack Obama would have brought comparisons to Fidel Castro. People who talked endlessly about respecting the Constitution affirm absurd slanders against the constitutional order. People who claimed to be patriots now spread false claims about their country’s fundamental corruption. People who talked of honoring the rule of law now jerk and gyrate according to the whims of a lawless leader. These conservative leaders no longer deserve the assumption of sincerity. They are spreading conspiratorial lies so unlikely and irrational, they must know them to be lies. But their motive remains a matter of debate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-moral-hypocrisy-of-conservative-leaders-is-stunning/2020/12/14/35e62f16-3e2d-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html

A gamble pays off in ‘spectacular success’: How the leading coronavirus vaccines made it to the finish line

The Vaccine Research Center, where Graham is deputy director, was the brainchild of Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It was created in 1997 to bring together scientists and physicians from different disciplines to defeat diseases, with a heavy focus on HIV. Since 1961, scientists had known about messenger RNA, the transient genetic material that makes life possible, taking the instructions inscribed in DNA and delivering those to the protein-making parts of the cell. In 2005, the pair discovered a way to modify RNA, chemically tweaking one of the letters of its code, so it didn’t trigger an inflammatory response. Deborah Fuller, a scientist who works on RNA and DNA vaccines at the University of Washington, said that work deserves a Nobel Prize. Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech, said it was thrilling when he and colleagues in 2016 developed a nanoparticle to deliver messenger RNA to a special cell type that could take the code and turn it into a protein on its surface to provoke the immune system. The latest genetic techniques, like messenger RNA, don’t take as long to develop because those virus bits don’t have to be generated in a lab. Instead, the vaccine delivers a genetic code that instructs cells to build those characteristic proteins themselves. Scientists have to choose which telltale part of the virus to show the immune system. Long before the pandemic, Graham’s research had revealed that some virus proteins change shape after they break into a person’s cells. A vaccine based on the wrong shape could effectively train the immune system to be an ineffective sheriff, never stopping vandals or burglars before they wreak their havoc. Graham had used this insight to design a better vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus; it made Science magazine’s shortlist of 2013’s most important scientific breakthroughs. Coronaviruses seemed like an important next target. Severe acute respiratory syndrome had emerged in 2003. Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) broke out in 2012. It seemed clear to Graham and Jason McLellan, a structural biologist now at the University of Texas at Austin, that new coronaviruses were jumping into people on a 10-year clock and that it might be time to brace for the next one. Last winter, when Graham heard rumblings of a new coronavirus in China, he brought the team back together. Once its genome was shared online by Chinese scientists, the laboratories in Texas and Maryland designed a vaccine, utilizing the stabilizing mutations and the knowledge they had gained from years of basic research — a weekend project thanks to the dividends of all that past work. On Jan. 13, Moderna, The company could start making the vaccine almost right away because of its experience manufacturing experimental cancer vaccines, which involves taking tumor samples and developing personalized vaccines in 45 days. But the world will also owe their existence to many scientists outside those companies, in government and academia, who pursued ideas they thought were important even when the world doubted them. McLellan’s laboratory at the University of Texas is proud to have licensed an even more potent version of their spike protein, royalty-free, to be incorporated into a vaccine for low- and middle-income countries. Graham is matter-of-fact, rather than exuberant, and quickly changes the subject to the immense amount of work that remains to be done. Historic scientific news must now be transformed into a tool that is mass produced, distributed and used widely around the world to blunt the sickness and suffering of this winter — and to lift the pall this pandemic has cast over virtually every aspect of daily life. He recalled that his 5-year-old granddaughter recently heard the family talking about “getting back to normal” if a vaccine is successful. “She looked up and said, ‘What is normal life, what do you mean by that?’ ” Graham said. “Half of her memorable life has been like this.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/12/06/covid-vaccine-messenger-rna/

The coronavirus vaccine isn't a miracle

Article in the New Orleans Advocate - Our Views: Another thing we ought to learn is how brilliant we can be. In a little more than the length of a major-league baseball season, scientists have invented and proved the efficacy of vaccines to end a global pandemic. In any other era in all the history of the world this would have been inconceivable. Reasonable people will call it a miracle. It isn’t. It is the achievement of a society that for all its brokenness can still do great things. Our universities produce researchers that make groundbreaking discoveries, our hospitals train nurses that care for the sick at great personal risk, our elections elevate just enough competent leaders to pull us through. There are still honest working men and women who show up every day to stock grocery shelves and clean COVID-19 wards. We ought to offer them a great deal more respect. https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_62de3768-3cb9-11eb-bfc6-872a8e1420e3.html

Years of research laid groundwork for speedy COVID-19 shots

From article: “The speed is a reflection of years of work that went before,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press. “That’s what the public has to understand.” But long before COVID-19 was on the radar, the groundwork was laid in large part by two different streams of research, one at the NIH and the other at the University of Pennsylvania — and because scientists had learned a bit about other coronaviruses from prior SARS and MERS outbreaks. The mRNA approach is radically different. It starts with a snippet of genetic code that carries instructions for making proteins. Pick the right virus protein to target, and the body turns into a mini vaccine factory. The right design is critical. It turns out the surface proteins that let a variety of viruses latch onto human cells are shape-shifters — rearranging their form before and after they've fused into place. Brew a vaccine using the wrong shape and it won’t block infection. “You could put the same molecule in one way and the same molecule in another way and get an entirely different response,” Fauci explained. That was a discovery in 2013, when Graham, deputy director of NIH’s Vaccine Research Center, and colleague Jason McLellan were investigating a decades-old failed vaccine against RSV, a childhood respiratory illness. Germany’s BioNTech in 2018 had partnered with New York-based Pfizer to develop a more modern mRNA-based flu vaccine, giving both companies some early knowledge about how to handle the technology. “This was all brewing. This didn’t come out of nowhere,” said Pfizer’s Dormitzer. Last January, shortly after the new coronavirus was reported in China, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin switched gears and used the same method to create a COVID-19 vaccine. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/article247670020.html

In 1918, Americans were asked to wear masks. Some refused — and paid the price.

In December of 1918, The Washington Post caught up with Oliver P. Cranston, a doctor from Boston, at the Willard Hotel and asked his opinion about people who pushed back against flu-fighting recommendations, including masks and the closure of churches, schools and other gathering places. “I cannot help but be impatient or intolerant at some of the views expressed,” Cranston said, adding: “Cranks should not be permitted to hamper the precautionary measures of the public officials.” That reminds me of something Anthony S. Fauci might say. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-1918-americans-were-asked-to-wear-masks-some-refused--and-paid-the-price/2020/07/01/748d3fde-bbb5-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html