The War Against the Pandemic

In Medieval times war was common among the tribes and countries around the world. Hand to hand combat with high death counts was the result of these wars. Over the past century our wars have become higher tech and less human engagement with fewer deaths. In Medieval battles the weapon of war was the broad sword that had a blade that was sharpened on both sides. One side was used to defeat the enemy coming from the front and the other side of the sword was to defeat the enemy who attacked from the rear. Today we are in a war like no other over the past one hundred years. The pandemic Covid-19 war has killed more people in the world than soldiers and civilians lost in the wars fought in the last century.
Special thanks go out to Dr. Jennifer Doudna, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last year and her team of scientific researchers at the University of California, who discovered CRISPR gene editing that led to the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines we are now taking to ward off the virus. I would like you to think about the metaphor of the vaccines being likened to the sharpened blade of the broad sword. The enemy virus is in front of us and we are trying to fight it off with one side of our broad sword. Unfortunately, the other side of our broad sword has not been sharpened and the enemy virus is now attacking us from our rear flank. The Covid-19 virus is changing its mode of attack with new variants and people around the world are victims, falling ill and many are being treated for their war injuries in hospitals and many casualties are resulting.
The answer to the world’s dilemma has to be a change in our battle tactics. In Medieval times the warriors sharpened their swords before battle. Like the early history tells us we need to sharpen the other side of our broad sword to ward off the enemy that has attacked from the rear. In 2021 we can sharpen our sword for battle by introducing monoclonal antibody treatments whenever a person receives a positive test for Covid-19. What is a monoclonal antibody treatment? Simply stated it attacks the virus in your body and if administered soon after the diagnosis will kill off the virus and increase the antibodies. This is not a new procedure as it was used as the experimental drug cocktail, Regeneron, to treat the former US president who immediately recovered within days. This is not the only antibody drug cocktail approved for use against Covid-19. The drug-maker Eli Lilly has bamlanivimab and combined with GlaxoSmithKine’s VIR-7831 have proven to be very effective in eliminating Covid-19 from a person’s body. We are in a war with this virus and we need both sides of our broad sword to defeat it. Up until now we have been putting all our eggs in the basket of vaccines but we need to attack the virus that is attacking our rear with monoclonal antibody treatments as soon as a person receives a positive Covid test. Governments have put a lot of resources into securing enough vaccine to inoculate every person. It is now time to ramp up demand for thousands of doses of antibody treatments to be administered through IV and hopefully doses of the treatments by injection or even as a nasal spray to fight the virus in the lungs when they become available.  If we want to win this war we need to act now!