It was a devastating year. More than 1.6 million people have died in the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 75 million cases and $ 10 billion in economic damage. In the United States, this year also saw the horrific murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, devastating wildfires and a presidential election, unlike modern times.
But there is good news in 2021.
I spent most of my time this year with colleagues at the foundation and around the world working on ways to test, treat, and prevent COVID-19. When I think of the pace of scientific progress in 2020, it amazes me. . This time, several vaccines were created in less than a year.
Unfortunately, we are not out of the woods yet. Computer models suggest that the pandemic could get worse next month. We also need to know more about a new variant of the virus that has appeared, which seems to spread faster but is not deadly.
After all, there are two main reasons to be hopeful. One is that masks, social distancing and other interventions can slow the spread of the virus and save lives while vaccines are being implemented.
The other reason for hope is that the vaccines and treatments you read about in the news will begin in the spring of 2021 to reach the scale where they will have a global impact. Although there should still be restrictions (for example, in large public gatherings), the number of cases and deaths will start to decline a lot, at least in rich countries, and life will be much closer to normal than it is now.
In this post, I want to share where things are on COVID-19 innovations as we wrap up this year and move on to the next. I'll start with vaccines, since they have been in the news so many times and this is the area that asks me the most.
How COVID-19 Vaccines Work
2020 year summary
You probably know that two vaccines, one developed by Moderna, the other by Pfizer and BioNTech, have received emergency approval in the US The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine has also been approved in the UK and other countries. And several other companies are likely to announce the results of clinical efficacy trials soon.
What you may not have read is that the success of the first two vaccines is very predictable for many other candidates as well. Virtually all vaccines now undergoing efficacy studies attack the same part of the new coronavirus as the first two. (This is the protein that sprouts from the virus and gives the coronavirus its corona shape, as well as its name.) Now that researchers know that targeting the specific protein can work, they have reason to be optimistic about other vaccines that do the same. . thing.
Despite this basic similarity, different vaccines use different approaches to attack the virus. The Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech developments involve so-called mRNA technology, an approach our foundation knows well, because since 2014 we have been funding research on it as a way to create vaccines for malaria and HIV. It is surprising that technology is making unprecedented progress with COVID-19.
It is not a coincidence that mRNA vaccines were the first to come out. By design, this type of vaccine can be created faster than usual. It works by using messenger RNA to instruct your body to make the characteristic vein protein. Then your immune system kicks in and attacks everything with the tip, including the COVID-19 virus.
Making mRNA vaccines is relatively quick because it is much easier to produce large amounts of an RNA sequence that codes for the vein protein than it is to grow the protein from the vein itself. And there is an added benefit: Unlike most conventional vaccines, mRNA vaccines do not contain any viruses, which means that COVID-19 cannot be eliminated.
Unfortunately, there are not many factories yet where mRNA products can be made. Some must also be stored at temperatures as low as -70 ° C, making it difficult to spread them in developing countries, although it is more of an engineering challenge than a scientific barrier.
An example of another type of vaccine is that made by AstraZeneca.