I have to admit, I’m getting a little bit tired of COVID-19. Or more specifically, I am getting tired of all the social distancing and not being able to work from my campus office. More than anything, this comes out in my frustration at having to use online meetings to conduct classes and student one-on-ones. Perhaps I’m not as effective a communicator as I would like to be, but I miss being able to sketch out ideas on paper to show students how systems work or using a whiteboard to supplement PowerPoint slides.

I am very much looking forward to exposure testing (an antibody test – most likely laminar flow, e.g. pregnancy tests) for SARS-cov-2 to demonstrate that we’ve either had the virus or are otherwise immune to it so we can get back to work!

I suggest that the Whitehouse coronavirus taskforce spend some time watching ‘Contagion’ for a roadmap of how we can return to a normally functioning society after an outbreak.

Another front in the fight against this virus that I am eagerly awaiting is a vaccine such as that made by the company Moderna, which uses RNA-like molecules to deliver protein-encoded messages to our cells. I’m eager to see the results of this vaccine’s trials (now at Emory University) both for the immediate effect in preventing COVID-19 as well as to see how this new vaccine platform performs.

I have my fingers crossed that I can get back to work as usual and, equally important, get back to my climbing gym, RoKC.