Progress: Diseases, Science, and Technology

Today I am awash in admiration for science.  Yesterday the Space X rocket was in the skies above us, and 23 hours it docked at the space station--astonishing when I stop to think about it.  And the space station itself--so different a vehicle than those that dotted the skies of my childhood in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's.

This week is the week of our last 2 vaccine shots in our household.  Two weeks until complete vaccination!  I was curious about the after effects since so many people I know had a more extreme reaction to the second shot, but so far, we've been fine.  My arm was more sore with the first shot than the second.  I was headachy yesterday, and last night, I crashed into bed even earlier than usual, and my usual bedtime has more in common with toddlers than adults.  Of course, my exhaustion on a Friday night might have nothing to do with a vaccine.

I am in awe of the new vaccine technology, the mRNA vaccine that teaches my cells how to resist the advances of the disease.  My poet brain thinks in anthropomorphic terms, seeing the virus as a suitor that doesn't have the best interests of the pursued in mind and my cells as innocent romantics, too open to the proclamations of the suitor.

Yesterday I wrote about this article by Megan McArdle who imagined this disease 20 years ago.  I have played the thought experiment of imaging that this virus struck back in the 80's, when AIDS first appeared.  What if the 2 diseases had changed places?  I do wonder if we'd have thrown more resources at AIDS if it had struck later in the life of humanity or if it had struck a less reviled minority--or if it emerged now, when more of us know more gay men, and we wouldn't have been content to abandon them to a horrific disease.

Now imagine if COVID-19 had descended on us in 1982.  We would have had the internet, sure, but most of us wouldn't have access to it.  We could have figured out a way to do school from a distance, but it wouldn't have been as easy.  Would we have done correspondence courses?  Would we have said, "We'll see you back in class in a year or two when this virus is over--until then, explore your own interests, students."

And what about work?  I think of our corporate team who has had a daily call.  In 1982, instead of Zoom sessions, I imagine that we'd have done a lot of conference calls on telephones.  But many of us forget that we couldn't just pick up a phone and have a cheap or free phone call back in 1982.  The cost of conference calls would have been enormous.  So maybe we'd have learned to trust each other and only checked in when we really needed the insight of far flung colleagues.

I am grateful for the technology that has allowed so many of us to pivot, even as I realize that technology hasn't worked for so many of us.  I am grateful for the science behind the technology.  I am hopeful about the future, even as I realize that we can never turn our back on diseases, even as I realize the forces of technology and science may not save us.