There is an analogue to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), to which there are 183 signatories, including all major powers. However, it lacks enforcement capability and has far less institutional, political, and financial support behind it than the international regimes we have in place to monitor nuclear... See more

The research was successful, and a weakened form of H5N1 that was ferret-to-ferret transmissible was created – something the wild virus was not capable of doing. This type of research is often referred to as gain of function, although the term is imprecise, as deliberately manipulating biological entities to give them new properties can be totally... See more

SARS-CoV-2 is not nearly as infectious as measles, as virulent as SARS-CoV-1, or as deadly to young children relative to older adults as influenza. But if any of those things had been different, we would have been in big trouble.

It is underappreciated how fortunate we were that essential services and supply chains broadly continued to function during the Covid-19 pandemic, something I saw firsthand managing the team responsible for the supply of fresh fruit at the UK’s second-largest supermarket. Had more extreme social distancing to suppress transmission been necessary,... See more