#60 – COVID’s in disguise

Comparing the R&D programs of humans (vaccines; drugs) and of COVID (variants)

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This is our third update on COVID (also see #28 and #36), pulled together right around the time that COVID rolled out its latest disguise: the omicron variant. Here, we look at some of the scientific advances, including the large number of diverse treatment strategies we now have, thanks to science and technology:

• vaccines containing a piece of mRNA for the spike protein (Moderna; Pfizer)
• vaccines containing a harmless adenovirus stuffed with RNA for the spike protein (AstraZeneca; Johnson&Johnson)
• vaccine containing the actual COVID spike protein itself (Noravax)
• vaccines made up of killed or inactivated COVID (Sinovac; Sinopharm)
• antibodies made against the spike protein (made in a Petri dish or by llamas!)
• drugs that block the enzyme COVID uses to reproduce itself (remdesivir; mulnupiravir; favipiravir)

All of these came about so quickly … not because a global cabal created COVID to bring the world to its knees, all the while keeping the remedy in its back pocket until we were ready to pay a steep ransom for it … but because the science and research enterprise of the entire globe was for the first time ever all simultaneously focused squarely on one target and collaborating in relative openness. We brought together a diverse array of tools and technologies that we’d been working on for decades, and created something new.

In this episode, we also look at COVID’s own research and development efforts. Through random mutations and natural selection, it’s not just creating more and more copies of itself, but better and faster versions of itself: the alpha variant, the beta variant, the delta variant, and then, just last week the omicron variant.

We’re in a race against COVID. Will we win because of our own science and technology? Or will we lose because of our stupidity and selfishness (anti-vaxxers; anti-maskers; rich countries withholding the answers from poorer countries; science deniers; conspiracy theorists)?

Finally, Boyd and I once again examine why this is even an “Evangelical problem”:

• “my body, my choice”
• “religious exemptions”
• “the vaccine contains a special ingredient made by the devil himself”

As always, tell us what you think …

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