The World Doesn’t Yet Know Enough to Beat the Coronavirus
The United States and many other nations are launching a life-threatening experiment. They are rapidly and perhaps prematurely easing restrictions on businesses and social activity—even as the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is still prevalent and much of the population remains susceptible to the disease it causes, COVID-19. The understandable desire to restore normal life quickly has raced ahead of the scientific knowledge necessary to do so safely. The result could be mortality rates that exceed even those occurring now, in the first wave of the pandemic.
Since late last month, I have been meeting frequently online with a group of nine colleagues: David Baltimore, Mike Brown, Don Ganem, Peggy Hamburg, Richard Lifton, Marc Lipsitch, Dan Littman, Shirley Tilghman, and Bruce Walker. All are well known for their work in areas such as virology, immunology, genetics, and epidemiology. All have served in one or more leadership roles: as presidents of universities or other academic institutions, as heads of government agencies, as advisers to drug or biotechnology companies, or simply as pioneers and mentors in their field. All have sought solutions to the great medical problems of our time. None of us can recall a crisis as stark as COVID-19.
[George Packer: We are living in a failed state]
Everyone in our group agrees that most governments were unprepared for a pandemic and underestimated this one, and that health-care workers were imperiled by a shortage of protective gear and , Giovanni Boccaccio wrote about 10 fictional citizens of Florence who hunkered down in a forest to tell stories, while escaping a world largely shut down by a plague. Today’s distancing and sheltering are even more severe, but at least information technology is allowing people of varied expertise—including the 10 scientists in our group—to meet and think about how to put an end to the present dilemma.
