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TonThis is the dizzying sense of scale that the Horizon Special Edition gives to the coronavirus vaccine. On the one hand, you have a pathogen-so small that it is invisible to the naked eye, even though it replicates millions of people in the host, even though the damage it causes is too obvious. Then you unite scientists across the continent, everyone has a world of knowledge that can be used to fight against microscopic enemies. Horizon’s 90-minute film powerfully evokes its miracles, the use of knowledge, logistics, and the necessary commitments that can easily take ten years to be compressed into several months. vaccine (BBC II). In addition, it did all of this without prejudice to science, facts, or the story itself.
What story is there. Horizon started with Dr. George Fu Gao of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who first learned about something happening in Wuhan on December 30, 2019. He takes samples from patients, uses next-generation sequencing technology to identify a new pathogen behind a new disease within a few days, and publishes the information to the world so that virologists on five continents can start their work. Dr. Teresa Lambe of Oxford University remembers “I curled up in front of my computer in my pajamas, designing a vaccine.” It was January 1, 2020.
Oxford uses a viral vector vaccine. Dr. Keith Chappell of the University of Queensland and his team decided to develop a protein vaccine (“the simplest type”, he said lightly, and then outlined how to combine viruses, chemicals, and a small piece of HIV “molecular forceps” To keep everything stable). China is on the path of inactivating viruses because they are surrounded by active ingredients. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health, led by Dr. Barney Graham and Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, and the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, led by Dr. Kathrin Jansen and Dr. Uğur Şahin of BioNTech, have decided to deploy a new method-mRNA, which is unprecedented. Is approved for use in humans.
Chappell remembers everything from “Thinking:’We can pretend we have saved the world!’ Yes:’Oh, damn-this is the real thing'”. The film does not say clearly, but the national character of each choice is very consistent with the stereotype (our solid choice, China’s ruthless pragmatism, American craftsmanship, Australia’s brisk perseverance), you have to allow yourself to smile.
Horizon’s expertise in making experts easy to understand and concepts easy to understand has never been better deployed. I can’t be the only scientifically illiterate audience who understands the mechanisms behind vaccine development better than she did before-in fact, better than she hoped. These explanations are relaxed and detailed, but they do not exclude the many other considerations that must be addressed by those working on how to invent and provide immunity and safety to 7 billion people around the world.
Once again, the difference in scale makes you unbelievable. On the one hand is equipment-materials worth $300 million were used to expand Pfizer’s production capacity, factories were reused, and a dozen huge storage freezers were brought to the newly built warehouse. On the other hand, these people huddled up on pipettes, test tubes, and data points on the screen, performing laboratory tests after laboratory tests, exhausting themselves every day, and then allowing themselves to go further. Contemporary footage shows that some of them are indeed grayed out due to fatigue. Professor Katie Ewer’s mother passed away because her daughter worked to support the T cell research needed for the Oxford vaccine. It seems clear that she has had it, maybe not yet, and is sad at any time.
Then there are small trials and large trials. As Covid surges globally, each country will make its own adjustments to balance the need for speed with the risk of harm. Certain sociocultural issues sometimes interrupt the scientific pathways that would otherwise proceed smoothly—for example, the historical mistrust of doctors in the black American community makes it difficult to recruit clinical trial volunteers, and education and encouragement programs are initiated. The results of the trials in almost all places ended up surprising in the best way. Only Australia has not crossed the finish line (the suggestion seems to be that investors, including the government, are afraid of certain unfavorable outcomes — or maybe just the potential public reaction to them — and withdraw funds before the problem can be found).
The film covers an impressive ground without losing power. Finally, I briefly touched on the need to avoid complacency, which would undermine the incredible work done by the subject. When our leaders proved that they failed again in this demand, it aired within a week, which gave it a lot of unnecessary resonance. Of course, there are more movies about the behavior of more people yet to be made.
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