+ Dick Brass A dose of luck
So this is going to be a very, very anxious Christmas for the Brass family.
luck. And we were very lucky.
Nor was it a given that a successful vaccine could be developed for Covid. There is still no effective vaccine for zika, malaria or Aids. And it’s not for want of trying. Presidentelect Joe Biden’s esteemed Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci has been working hard on an Aids vaccine since the early 1980s. But the unique nature of the HIV virus that causes Aids makes it a very tough nut to crack. The stunning 95 per cent efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine which New Zealand and the US has purchased was absolutely not guaranteed or even expected. The Moderna vaccine has similar results, and within a year there will be many others. That’s luck too.
My wife Regina knows about this from personal experience. She has seen it happen once before. A retired MD now, she was a young nurse when Aids first appeared in NYC in the early 1980s. One of her patients was Aids’ famous Patient Zero. At one time, she kept a single page of paper on which was written the names of every Aids patient in New York City. In a year, there would be many thousands. As of today, the World Health Organisation estimates that more than 32 million have died of Aids globally. Covid, which has so far killed about 1.6 million, seems unlikely to get anywhere near Aids’ grim butcher’s bill. The reason? To a great extent, luck.
There is more good fortune, due to amazing progress in medical science and technology since then. It took two years to identify the HIV virus after the first Aids patients appeared in Regina’s hospital. It took just weeks to isolate and sequence the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid. It took many years before the first effective drug treatments for Aids appeared. It took only months before we were able to deploy dexamethasone and monoclonal antibodies to fight Covid. In 1982, there was no high-speed global web to facilitate research collaboration. Today, every virologist in the world can work together. Every nation can see what works in Covid-successful nations like New Zealand.
In the US, of course, we were hobbled a bit. Our President lied, bungled and ultimately gave up any leadership in fighting Covid. He called it a “hoax”, pretended it would go away, and even suggested nonsensical therapies like injecting disinfectants. Although he did also push for vaccine development, it would be fair to say that few developed countries have done much worse than us. Given Trump, we were very lucky it wasn’t even worse.
This is going to be a scary end to a rotten year for our family. It’s been much worse already for the millions who have died, suffered or lost loved ones. It will be possible again under Biden for the world to unite on health. We must put in place enough science, surveillance, and responsibility to prevent another Covid. Trillions of dollars would be cheap insurance. We can’t count on luck going forward.