I don’t know what it’s like for you, but this March is giving me some hesitant hope. Maybe this has something to do with it:
There are four days left before the book comes out, but today–with a hard copy to clutch–feels like the day the book comes alive (forgive the pun).
The New York Times, March 3, 2021 (with Keith Collins)
This week, Johnson & Johnson began delivering millions of doses of its coronavirus vaccine across the United States after receiving an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Central to getting the green light was a trial that Johnson & Johnson ran to measure the vaccine’s efficacy.
Efficacy is a crucial concept in vaccine trials, but it’s also a tricky one. If a vaccine has an efficacy of, say, 95 percent, that doesn’t mean that 5 percent of people who receive that vaccine will get Covid-19. And just because one vaccine ends up with a higher efficacy estimate than another in trials doesn’t necessarily mean it’s superior. Here’s why.
The New York Times, March 1, 2021
In just a matter of weeks, two variants of the coronavirus have become so familiar that you can hear their inscrutable alphanumeric names regularly uttered on television news.
B.1.1.7, first identified in Britain, has demonstrated the power to spread far and fast. In South Africa, a mutant called B.1.351 can dodge human antibodies, blunting the effectiveness of some vaccines.
Scientists have also had their eye on a third concerning variant that arose in Brazil, called P.1. Research had been slower on P.1 since its discovery in late December, leaving scientists unsure of just how much to worry about it.
“I’ve been holding my breath,” said Bronwyn MacInnis, an epidemiologist at the Broad Institute.
Continue reading “Virus Variant in Brazil Infected Many Who Had Already Recovered From Covid-19”
“The Secret Life of a Coronavirus” is an essay I adapted from Life’s Edge for the Sunday Review in the New York Times. I consider whether viruses are alive–and how we set the line between the living and the non-living world. If you like the essay, you can order the book here.
This is a quick note to draw your attention to a piece I’ve just published that I’m very proud to share. Tomorrow’s Sunday Review in the New York Times features a long essay I adapted from my new book Life’s Edge. It’s called “The Secret Life of a Coronavirus.”
In my essay, I touch on a couple of the big questions in my book: what does it take to be alive, and what are we to make of the things that don’t quite meet our requirements? Our current pandemic is the work of one such hard case. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, February 27, 2021”