New COVID Vaccines Need Absurd Amounts of Material and Labor

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January 04, 2021

Dear Reader,   How fast can the companies making mRNA COVID vaccines scale up production to meet global demand? Each step in the manufacturing process requires raw materials that previously were only produced in amounts necessary for clinical research—not sustained production of billions of doses. Today’s lead story explains some of the biggest challenges and how they can be overcome. Next, cardiovascular risk from the accumulation of “bad” cholesterol in blood vessels is shifting from high-income Western countries, especially those in Europe, to low- and middle-income countries, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. And lastly, read about how education makes a dramatic difference in the way people age.

Sunya Bhutta, Senior Editor, Audience Engagement @sunyaaa

Medicine New COVID Vaccines Need Absurd Amounts of Material and Labor Companies are scrambling to obtain supplies for hundreds of millions of doses of a type of vaccine that has never been made at this scale before By Charles Schmidt

Policy & Ethics India Is Targeting Defenders of Indigenous Rights as 'Terrorists' Adivasis and their allies are being persecuted for protesting development that destroys the environment By Virginius Xaxa

Climate California Is Closing the Door to Gas in New Homes The state aims to reduce natural gas use for home heating and hot water as part of its bid to lower emissions By Anne C. Mulkern,E&E News

Public Health A New Strain of Drug-Resistant Malaria Has Sprung Up in Africa Here’s how we fight back By Thomas Hall

Public Health Cholesterol Drops in the West and Rises in the East Blood levels change as people alter diets and the use of statin medications By Mark Fischetti,Jen Christiansen

Public Health Is 70 Really the New 60? People are aging better but not across the board. Education makes a dramatic difference By Claudia Wallis

Computing How to Make Artificial Intelligence More Democratic A new type of learning model uses far less data than conventional AIs, allowing researchers with limited resources to contribute By Ryan Khurana

Arts & Culture How the Coronavirus Pandemic Shaped Our Language in 2020 Linguist Ben Zimmer says the pandemic has turned us all into amateur epidemiologists utilizing terms such as “superspreader” and “asymptomatic.” Christopher Intagliata reports. By Christopher Intagliata | 02:12

Policy & Ethics In Case You Missed It Top news from around the world By Sarah Lewin Frasier

Computing New App Tracks Black Rhinos through Their Footprints Indigenous trackers inspire a safer way to help rhinoceroses By Helen Santoro

Public Health The Immune Havoc of COVID-19 The virus flourishes by undermining the body’s chemical defense system By Akiko Iwasaki,Patrick Wong

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FROM THE ARCHIVE The COVID Cold Chain: How a Vaccine Will Get to You A vaccine logistics expert explains how millions of frozen vials will be widely distributed By Mark Fischetti | November 2020

QUOTE OF THE DAY "There aren't any facilities in the world that have manufactured mRNA at such a large scale before." Maria Elena Bottazzi, virologist at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital in Houston

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