The Body Scientific

Pandemics leave their remnants in traumas of death and illness. Nurses, doctors, and patients were stunned by the scrambles that the Covid-19 virus produced. Columbia Presbyterian, a thousand bed teaching hospital in Manhattan was converted to emergency rooms to treat gasping Covid patients.

Many years ago, never mind how many, a biology student from Manila wrote to me about earning a PhD at Columbia University.  At the time, I was head of the PhD program in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

What have the scientific, pharmaceutical, and medical communities done to stifle SARS-CoV-2 infections? There are currently 18 advanced trials of different vaccines, 64 possible new treatments, and 23 potential or approved anti-viral drugs.

Afew months ago, we were enjoying the reopening of civil society. But events intervened. First, the protection of two-dose vaccines started to subside. Second, unvaccinated patients, including children, were sickened by the furiously infectious omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.

In an extraordinary 20 months, science has tackled the SARS-CoV-2 virus and made vaccines for adults and children. Scientists have developed monoclonal antibodies that help if given early; we now have the first drugs that could stop infections or tilt the immunological fight in favor of the patient.

My wife does not like clutter. When she sees 50 issues of Nature, the British science magazine, piled on my desk, she gets a little peremptory. Out! she said. I decided on the dignity of an orderly retreat. I had been looking for subjects to write about in what I hope will be a post-COVID world. Call it an act of faith, or at least optimism.

We need a break from COVID-19, that miserable virus. There was science before it and there will be science after it, but for now, a scientific voyage at sea is just the escapism, we, or at least I, am after. So, let’s join Charles Darwin and Captain Robert FitzRoy on HMS Beagle. 

I was looking forward to writing about something other than COVID-19 and there is a lot to discuss. But first, let’s put the delta variant into some context. General Colin Powell once said, “The enemy always gets a vote” and hopeful situations can change, even if the enemy is a virus.