How did you manage to create a vaccine from coronavirus in such a short time and why did this change the entire situation in the scientific world? The bookmate Originals came out the translation of the new Longrid of the Scientific Correspondent of The Atlantic Magazine Ed Yanga "As a science won the virus" - we present a brief retelling of the article.
COVID-19 has already studied more than all other viruses in history.In the fall of 2019, no scientist knew about COVID-19. In mid-January 2021, scientific articles about this virus - more than 90 thousand. 32% of Western scientists admitted that they were shifted by the focus of their scientific interests towards the pandemic. Neurobiologists who study the smell began to find out why it disappears in patients with COVID-19. Physics, which still encountered infectious diseases only as patients, began to build models that help the authorities during the epidemic. For example, Michael D. L. Johnson from the University of Arizona usually studies the toxic properties of copper on bacteria, however, learning that SARS-COV-2 does not survive on copper surfaces, he began to explore the metal interaction mechanism with a virus.
No other virus was subjected to such a closer study for such a short time. Thus, SARS-COV-2 becomes one of the most scrupulously described causative agents of the disease for the entire history. "The genome of this virus is known to us only since January, and in the fall we finish - finish! - Third test stage, - says the chief epidemiologist of the United States Antonio Fauci. - Well, not a fig itself! "
However, the hurry in the adoption of many solutions has not passed without negative consequences. Self-confident scientific deposit was misleading their audience in social networks, and sometimes influenced political decisions. Public stereotypes about the pandemic quickly picked up new "epidemiologists", which have a lot of free time on quarantine. For example, on March 16, two biogeograph published a preprint, in which they claimed that COVID-19 "only slightly affect tropical countries", because it poorly transfers a hot and wet environment.
Infectiousists immediately indicated that this method works to predict biological ranges - or diseases that have a living carrier, and poorly suitable for the conclusions about the behavior of the virus like SARS-COV-2. However, more than 50 media reprinted the hypothesis, and it even sounded from the stands during one of the UN World Food Food Program. Since then, COVID-19 is raging in many tropical countries - in Brazil, Indonesia and Colombia, and in the following versions of the article by the authors of preprint had to significantly soften their conclusions.
Clinical researchers spent millions of dollars on completely raw and therefore practically meaningless experiments. And some pharmaceutical companies focused on the release of ineffective antivirus drugs. The real flood of low-standard studies, at best, meaningless, and in the worst - harmful, slowed down the search for the medication from COVID-19.
Many of the thousands of clinical studies were carried out on a very small number of patients and could not bring a statistically significant result. In some there was no control group, that is, participants in the test, which instead of medication receive placebo. Other works repeated each other. At least 227 articles described the tests of the hydroxychlorochin - an antimaryary drug, which for months, exceeded Donald Trump. Several major studies over time confirmed that hydroxychloroquing does not help patients with COVID-19, but during this time thousands of people were attracted to the tests that did not make sense by virtue of an insignificant sample.
It can be assumed that it is difficult to carry out a neat study in the midst of trouble when the hospitals are overflowing and patients die every day. But in history there were already such cases. During World War II, federal agencies managed to bring together private companies, university laboratories, military and everyone else to speed up pharmaceutical development. Thus appeared revolutionary drugs from malaria, new methods of mass production of antibiotics and at least ten new - or improved influenza vaccinations and other diseases.
What happens when all the money and attention is sent in one directionIf one object captures all the money and attention, others lose this. Perennial studies of bird migration and climate change will never receive data for this year, since field studies have been canceled. Ecologists, rescued monkeys populations, did not approach them from fear to infect the species that are so in danger. Only about 80% of non-COVID-19 medical research were interrupted or stopped in 2020.
At the same time, the US National Health Institute received from Congress 3.6 billion dollars. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation allocated $ 350 million for work related to COVID-19. In addition, Congress allocated $ 75 million National Scientific Foundation in order to speed up the studies that could bring applied benefits. "Money just washed," says Cassidy Sugimoto from Indiana University, which worked at the time in the Foundation. - They got the first to come. All this worked in favor of those who know the system and acts quickly. "
"As soon as big money appears, a fight begins for food," confirms Madkar Pai from McGill University. He is engaged in tuberculosis, from which 1.5 million people die each year, that is, about the same amount as from Coronavirus in 2020. However, tuberculosis studies are mostly stopped. None of the colleagues did not retrain in due time in a specialist in Ebola viruses or Zika. "And now half of us work with COVID-19," he says. - This is a black hole that I saw all of us. "
Positive results still outweighThese specialists in new diseases are quite a bit, in the absence of a pandemic they were not interested in. "A year ago I had to explain to people why I was engaged in coronaviruses," says Lisa Grainski from the University of North Carolina to Chepel Hill. - It seemed that such a problem would never have to face. " Now journalists deposit her requests for an interview, and in addition to the main work, it is instructed to advise enterprises, schools and local governments. This additional load is not paid at all, but if you do not refute the pseudoscience in the long thread twitter, then the chaos and panic in society will only increase.
Despite all the negative phenomena, with whom the scientific community faced, the result did not make himself wait. 90 years ago no one has seen a separate virus in the eyes; Today we have a scientific reconstruction of the chemical composition and the shape of SARS-COV-2 up to the last atom. According to Madukara Pia, "such a turn, as now, never even closely happened - he hurt us for living." There is hope that the discoveries committed in its description will better prepare to meet with future epidemiological challenges.
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