The Economist: Do you believe a vaccine will be found and if so, how quickly? And what are the alternative options in the meantime?
Mr Brilliant: I see no reason to not believe that a vaccine will be found. While we weren't successful In making the vaccine after the first SARS or MERS outbreaks, that was just because the epidemic was over so quickly that we didn't keep a sustained effort. There is nothing biologically that I see in the virus that troubles me. We already do have putative or potential vaccines.
That's great news from epidemiologist Larry Brilliant. We are so lucky to encounter a virus that we know a lot about. Now imagine what the world would look like if we didn't know much... see what happened with smallpox even after a vaccine was found:
The Economist: In your time, you have seen pandemics subside. What does a return to normality look like? Life after covid-19?
Mr Brilliant: It's going to be hard. You know, first, during the peak of this pandemic, we will see things that my generation, your generation, has never seen before. When I was in India—and I lived in India for 10 years; I love India—working on the smallpox eradication programme, in the year that we began the programme, there were 250,000 children who were stricken with disease. At least a third would die, perhaps more. And the crematoriums were unable to handle the load. So you would find bodies wrapped in paper cloth that would be stacked like cords of wood.
We are not able to look at a scene like that, like Dante's Inferno or Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings. We're not able to look at that without feeling something that we don't feel for almost anything else in the world. We'll look at that; we'll look at the way that we see wonderful, good people—shopkeepers and workers—who are made homeless. We will go back to a time and a state that we're not ready for emotionally.
Mr Brilliant: I see no reason to not believe that a vaccine will be found. While we weren't successful In making the vaccine after the first SARS or MERS outbreaks, that was just because the epidemic was over so quickly that we didn't keep a sustained effort. There is nothing biologically that I see in the virus that troubles me. We already do have putative or potential vaccines.
That's great news from epidemiologist Larry Brilliant. We are so lucky to encounter a virus that we know a lot about. Now imagine what the world would look like if we didn't know much... see what happened with smallpox even after a vaccine was found:
The Economist: In your time, you have seen pandemics subside. What does a return to normality look like? Life after covid-19?
Mr Brilliant: It's going to be hard. You know, first, during the peak of this pandemic, we will see things that my generation, your generation, has never seen before. When I was in India—and I lived in India for 10 years; I love India—working on the smallpox eradication programme, in the year that we began the programme, there were 250,000 children who were stricken with disease. At least a third would die, perhaps more. And the crematoriums were unable to handle the load. So you would find bodies wrapped in paper cloth that would be stacked like cords of wood.
We are not able to look at a scene like that, like Dante's Inferno or Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings. We're not able to look at that without feeling something that we don't feel for almost anything else in the world. We'll look at that; we'll look at the way that we see wonderful, good people—shopkeepers and workers—who are made homeless. We will go back to a time and a state that we're not ready for emotionally.
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