COVID 19 - the virus that changed our lifestyles, environment, and social systems. The pandemic outbreak has led to countless changes whether that directly or indirectly affect us.
First of all, the pandemic made it very evident that humans evolved to be interdependent and not self-sufficient. Infectious diseases present an unusual challenge because, in order to combat them effectively, we need to render aid appropriately and consistently at a large scale. As a result, communities that were already heavily invested in social safety nets with measures such as paid sick leave were able to lower COVID rates quickly. On the other hand, others who invested in the belief of self-sufficiency and individualism prolonged the suffering caused by the pandemic and increased the loss of life.
Second, due to the pandemic, researchers found new forms of rapid communication and collaboration. When the covid 19 virus started to spread, researchers from across the scientific ecosystem including economists, physicists, engineers, and psychologists dropped everything to learn about COVID and figure out how they could contribute. Large-scale surveys of scientists done in 2020 and 2021 show that roughly a third of researchers in the US and Europe contributed to the effort. This large-scale collaboration moved quickly and effectively in several areas. For example, on December 30th in 2019, an epidemiological surveillance network published the first English language note about a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause in Wuhan, China, and eight days later, Chinese scientists identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus. Then the full genome sequence was published just two days after that and this sequence opened the door for vaccine development as well. Scientists used it to determine the 3-dimensional structure of the SARS COV2 spike protein and by the end of January they had figured out how to stabilize the protein to make it an effective vaccine component, leading to innovations of mRNA-based vaccines. They were developed, tested, and distributed in less than a year. The active research and constant new findings shifted early stage science from a private activity to part of the public discourse. Rather than publishing fully polished articles for the public to view, investigators worked in open view, offering preliminary speculations and pursuing some hypotheses that would ultimately be refuted. This change in the method of communication has positive sides but also there are downsides as well. Previously private communications were now open to exploitation and distortion by politicians and pundits. For example, flawed research reported on various issues regarding coronavirus was used to undermine public health interventions even though the scientific community quickly pointed out a host of problems with the work. Another downside was the prevalence of the misinformation that confused so many people, increasing the cases of deaths and speed of transmission.
Another impact of the pandemic is that it worsened the inequality. The coronavirus exacerbated the fragility and inequity of the global economic system. SARS CoV2 most severely affected those with poverty-related health conditions and with jobs that cannot be done in isolation. Not having the most basic rights of health care and paid sick leave, many Americans lacked testing to know if they were infected. Furthermore, poor people are suffering the most from the pandemic’s economic aftermath. The occurrences of losing jobs are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage service sectors. In addition, the legal barriers presented by intellectual property rights that have given the current producers of vaccines monopoly power reduced the capacity of making greater supplies of vaccines. The fortunate news is that the new vaccine in the form of CORBEVAX has no patent restrictions and is easy to make, circumventing national selfishness and corporate greed.
Now, One of the biggest impacts that the pandemic brought is probably scientific innovation, including messenger RNA therapies. Messenger RNA vaccines instruct cells to create proteins that induce an immune response to an invader such as the SARS COV 2 virus, training the immune system to attack future infections of the actual pathogen. The success of Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines inspired researchers, companies, and government labs to pursue this therapy for many infectious diseases such as influenza, norovirus, rabies, malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.
These are just some of the few impacts caused by the coronavirus. Other than the previously mentioned effects, the pandemic also highlighted the limits of global health institutions, the interconnectedness of science and politics, and the change in work conditions. There are ups and downs in the new world that COVID 19 brought, but we should focus on the benefits to find ways to utilize them for a better future.