First Draft of History!

I was planning to send out the November issue of this newsletter on the first Friday of the month, as I typically do. But nonstop cable-news viewing got in the way. And as soon as I could pry my eyes away from the electoral drama, there was vaccine news to report. Not just another vaccine going into clinical trials, but the first trial to deliver preliminary data about whether a coronavirus vaccine works.

And it looks like it does!

Pfizer and BioNTech reported that an analysis of 94 cases of Covid-19 in their volunteers led to an estimate that their vaccine is over 90 percent effective. Yes. 90. Now, it’s entirely possible that the true effectiveness of the vaccine will be lower. But no one knew if coronavirus vaccines would work at all, and many folks who did were saying that 50 percent efficacy would be nice. So, at one of the worst stages of this pandemic (163,402  new cases on November 12 alone), this is some truly good news.

Here’s the story of the announcement, which I co-authored with David Gelles and Katie Thomas. Thomas and I followed up the following day with answers to some of the questions people are asking about these results, and the state of vaccine trials more generally. A couple days later, I talked with Michael Barbaro on The Daily about what this milestone means for getting vaccines for the coronavirus.

The Pfizer results have, I suspect, popped the vaccine news cork. On Wednesday, two days after Pfizer’s announcement, Russia announced their Sputnik V vaccine was just as effective, based on…just 20 cases. With Andrew Kramer, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, I tried to make sense of the announcement. And I expect starting next week, we will have even more vaccine trial news–stay tuned!
 

“Chaos and Confusion”

While I’m happy to help deliver good news, it’s also important to keep our eyes wide open to the shortcomings in our search for a vaccine and the trouble we may face in the months to come. Here’s a story I wrote about the last time the United States rolled out a pandemic vaccine–for a new strain of influenza in 2009–and how we have lost a lot of the leadership that was so essential to making sure it was safe. In another story, I wrote about how we all need to prepare for “chaos and confusion”–the words of one vaccine expert–when coronavirus vaccines roll out this spring. 

The Coronavirus Unveiled

Structural biology is the study of living shapes. It’s a pretty esoteric field, but the pandemic has suddenly brought it to the world’s attention. Scientists are unveiling the shape of the coronavirus down to individual atoms. Here’s a feature I wrote on what we’re learning and how it could lead to new vaccine and treatments for Covid-19. It’s graced with gorgeous videos and pictures that will give you a grudging admiration for this tiny killer.

A Nobel for CRISPR

Just a few years ago, I struggled to get magazine editors as excited as I was about a new DNA-editing technology called CRISPR. But it soon soared to fame. And now this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to two pioneers of CRISPR–Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. Here’s the Times story on the win, which I co-authored with Katherine Wu and Elian Peltier.

By coincidence, I had just finished writing a review about a new book on CRISPR, Editing Humanity, for the New York Times Book Review. They published it later the same day. Warning: it’s hard to review a book about gee-whiz science in the middle of a pandemic that is showing us that science–on its own–can’t save us from ourselves. The Center for Genetics and Society went so far as to call my review “peevish.” It’s the first time I’ve had a review of a review! 

That’s it for now. Stay safe. Zoom your family for Thanksgiving. Let’s not make things any easier for this virus.

My next book is Life’s Edge: Searching for What It Means to Be Alive. It’s coming out in March 2021, but you can pre-order it now. You can find information and ordering links for my thirteen other books here. You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and LinkedIn. If someone forwarded this email to you, you can subscribe to it here.

Best wishes, Carl

Originally published November 13, 2020. Copyright 2020 Carl Zimmer.