COVID-19: 'SCIENCE ON TRIAL' ?

THIAGO CARVALHO* in this weekend's Financial Times asks: 'So what have we learned about the limits of science? First, we were reminded that spectacular successes are built on a foundation of decades of basic research. Even the novel, first-in-class vaccines are at the end of a long road. It was slow-going to get to warp speed. We learned that there are no shortcuts to deciphering how a new virus makes us sick (and kills us) and that there is no ignoring the importance of human diversity for cracking this code. Diabetes, obesity, hypertension - we are still finding our way through a comorbidity labyrinth. Most of all, we have learned an old lesson again: science is the art of the soluable. No amount of resorces and personnel, no Manhattan Project, can ensure that science will solve a problem in the absence of a well-stocked toolbox and a solid, painstaking built theoretical framework.'

He reminds us: 'South Korea recorded its first Covid-19 case on January 20. Eleven days later, Spain confirmed its first infection: a German tourist in the Canary Islands. Spain and South Korea have similar populations of about 50m people. As of ublication of this piece, South Korea has had 879 deaths, while Spain reports over 50,000. The west missed its moment.'

* The writer is an immunologist at the Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon.

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