What a year, huh? Everything about 2020 seemed bad. As the prologue to Dave Barry’s year in review, says:
This was a year of nonstop awfulness, a year when we kept saying it couldn’t possibly get worse, and it always did. This was a year in which our only moments of genuine, unadulterated happiness were when we were able to buy toilet paper.
Which is fitting, because 2020 was one long, howling, Category Five crapstorm.
Dave Barry recaps 2020 with annual year in review | Miami Herald
And here we are on the cusp of a new year, 2021. Our knowledge of the world and how it works evolved. We, as a species, know more at this time than we did at this time last year. We know more about covid-19 now than we did last year, as we began hearing stories coming out of mainland China.
We have revolutionary vaccines in record time thanks to gene technology, which Matt Ridley discusses here in a post about the new vaccine.
The first Covid-19 vaccine … is not just a welcome breakthrough against a grim little enemy that has defied every other weapon we have tried, from handwashing to remdesivir and lockdowns. It is also the harbinger of a new approach to medicine altogether. Synthetic messengers that reprogram our cells to mount an immune response to almost any invader, including perhaps cancer, can now be rapidly and cheaply made.
Why mRNA vaccines could revolutionise medicine
Twenty-twenty was a remarkable year. Yes it was “one long, howling, Category Five crapstorm,” and it was one in which we as a species learned, adapted, found new ways to connect, and, for the most part, muddled through.
Cheers.
You can find me tweeting about science, government, and most everything on Twitter at @timberati