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Stock and oil prices climbed on Monday on news that a coronavirus vaccine candidate by biotech startup Moderna has shown promise in early clinical trials. Governments are starting to lift their lockdowns, but Americans and the rest of the world will need an effective vaccine—and maybe several—for a return to pre-virus normality. It took 20 months for scientists to prepare a SARS vaccine for test on humans, but private innovation is compressing the time-frame against Covid-19. Using rapid genetic sequencing and its nimble mRNA manufacturing platform, Moderna was able to develop and deliver a vaccine to the National Institutes of Health for clinical trials in late February. (5/18)

The fast pace at which various laboratories are working on vaccines against Covid-19 carries both promise and peril. On Monday, Moderna Therapeutics Inc. announced the first reported data from human trials, and they are positive. That’s good news, and it arrived sooner than expected. But the parts of the project that lie ahead will be harder to accomplish with speed. Eight patients who received low and medium doses of the Moderna’s candidate vaccine appear to have developed antibodies capable of neutralizing the new coronavirus. The company didn’t have detailed data on the rest of the 45 trial participants, but all generated at least some antibodies. It was early data from a small study, though, and the limited results don’t prove that the vaccine provides broad and durable protection. Also, while there were no serious safety issues, three patients who received the highest dose of the vaccine briefly suffered modest “flu-like symptoms” after their second injection. (Max Nisen, 5/18)

As health experts keep reminding us, life will not return to anything resembling pre-pandemic normal until there is an effective and widely available coronavirus vaccine. And, as they also keep reminding us, it will take at least a year to do the testing and clinical trials necessary to ensure that a vaccine candidate is safe for mass production. So it’s more than a little unsettling that President Trump’s effort to expedite a vaccine for COVID-19 has a significantly shortened timeline, one that seems suspiciously connected to the political calendar rather than sound science. (5/19)

That so much hope is being pinned on remdesivir, the drug Gilead is testing for Covid-19, reflects the failure of our system for new drug development rather than the unqualified success some commentators are making it out to be. If anything, remdesivir is the poster child for why we need a new model of drug development for pandemics and neglected diseases that isn’t restricted by the current market-based model. (Tahir Amin and Rohit Malpani, 5/19)

The hype over the drug hydroxychloroquine was fueled by President Trump and Fox News, whose hosts touted it repeatedly on air. The president’s claims were not backed by scientific evidence, but he was enthusiastic. “What do you have to lose?” he has asked. In desperation, the public snapped up pills and the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization on March 28 for the drug to be given to hospitalized patients. On Thursday, Mr. Trump declared, “So we have had some great response, in terms of doctors writing letters and people calling on the hydroxychloroquine.” Now comes the evidence. Two large studies of hospitalized patients in New York City have found the drug was essentially useless against the virus. (5/17)

“There have been many plagues in the world as there have been wars,” Albert Camus wrote, “yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared.” Both plagues and wars, horrific and tragic, strike the soul of a society, its core beliefs and practices. The battle against the novel coronavirus is already changing the way medicine is practiced. (Jonathan D. Moreno and Stephen N. Xenakis, 5/18)

In mid-March, the day before I flew back to New York City to return to work as a pediatric intensive care unit nurse, my brother, an emergency physician, urged me to quit. Stay in Chicago near family, he argued, and find a job in a local hospital. That way, if I were to contract Covid-19, my brother could manage my ventilator. And if the city ran out of ventilators, he promised he would manually ventilate me. (Emily Williams, 5/19)