When Will We Get a Vaccine? Plus democrats vs dictators - answers from history on who triumphs over disasters, and Best Binge Watch Ever!

Grüezi! I’m Adrian Monck and welcome to this World Economic Forum newsletter.

This week... All not so quiet on the vaccine front. Which ‘crat’ tackles natural disasters best – autocrats or democrats? The crazy 60s gurus who tried to create the data-driven networked world of today with punch cards and mainframes. And fashion from flotsam. And more!

Newsletters are for sharing – so please share this one!

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1?? When Will We Get a Vaccine?

Phase 3 trials on tens of thousands of people could deliver results soon.

Here’s the FT:

“When can we expect results? Scientists’ forecasts for when the first vaccine could present positive Phase 3 trial results range from October this year, at the most optimistic, to mid-2021 at the most pessimistic.”

• End of October: “Pfizer/BioNTech have said they would have sufficient data from their Phase 3 trial to begin analysis by the end of October. Moderna, which has enrolled more than 25,000 participants in its trial and given more than 10,000 of those both doses in the vaccine course, said last week that an interim analysis of trial results is more likely to begin in November and potentially as late as December.
• End of December: When the AstraZeneca trial restarted in the UK in September, the company said it was still on track to submit its vaccine for regulatory approval before the end of the year. Some 18,000 individuals in the UK, US, South Africa and Brazil have received its AZD1222 vaccine as part of the trial so far.
• After initial Phase 3 trial results are available, a successful vaccine could be approved by the relevant national regulator within one month, analysts estimate, allowing for the early delivery of the shot to vulnerable groups.
• It would likely take a further six months for full Phase 3 trial data to be collected and analysed before the shot could be made available for wider public vaccination campaigns.”

And Johnson and Johnson have just started their Phase 3 trials. Their vaccine only needs one shot, and doesn’t need to be kept refrigerated.

In January, the world’s first COVID–19 human challenge trials, infecting healthy people with to see how well vaccines perform, will start in London.

? Creating a vaccine is just the start. How will we distribute billions of doses?

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2?? Democracy and Autocracy vs COVID–19

Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes had views on what worked when chips were down.

For a little more sophistication on the topic, I recommend David Stasavage. Over the summer you might have missed the PolSci prof weighing up whether democracies or dictatorships deal best with pandemics.

Here it is.

[T]he differences in COVID-19 responses that we are seeing today are not new, nor are they attributable to the particular personalities of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. They are in fact very deeply rooted in history going back a thousand years or more ... A thousand years ago the Chinese state had the ability to respond to famines, but it could also ignore them. States in medieval Europe, where decision making was collective with rulers and representative assemblies, could not suppress information about a famine, but nor could they do much to deal with the problem.

It’s a fascinating historical essay – and if you like it, you’ll love his history of democracy.

? In both democracies and autocracies, people want real change post-COVID.

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3?? How to Stop COVID–19 Making the World Less Equal

Join Ishaan Tharoor to look at how we can stop the pandemic pushing up inequality.

? Find out more with our COVID–19 Transformation Map.

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4?? The 60s Mad Men Who Predicted Cambridge Analytica

A new history spills beans on a company built to weaponise academic research.

One of those behind the Bond-villain-named Simulmatics was MIT prof Ithiel de Sola Pool, described by a non-fan as “the most corrupt social scientist I had ever met, without question.”

The NYRB picks out one of his insights into the world we live in now:

“In 1968 Pool contributed an essay to Toward the Year 2018, a book of “amazing predictions of what life will be like 50 years from today.” Everything now filed on paper will be stored in computers, he said: “Tax returns, social security records, census forms, military records, perhaps a criminal record, hospital records, security clearance files, school transcripts…bank statements, credit ratings, job records.” And so?

By 2018 the researcher sitting at his console will be able to compile a cross-tabulation of consumer purchases (from store records) by people of low IQ (from school records) who have an unemployed member of the family (from social security records). That is, he will have the technological capability to do this. Will he have the legal right?

Fifty years later, we can answer Pool’s question. Yes, the researcher—and the world’s most powerful corporations—have the legal right to compile these dossiers. They also have the legal right to feed us a diet of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and clickbait for the benefit of marketers and unscrupulous politicians.”

? The Internet is inside our bodies too. We need new rules to govern it.

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5?? Making Masks More Inclusive

Disability needs help masking up.

? It’s not just masks: how company accounts can improve the world.  

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6??  It Washed up on a Beach. Now You Can Wear it to the Beach

The Spanish company turning ocean plastic into wearable chic.

? Find out more about people with innovative solutions to tough challenges at our Sustainable Development Impact Summit.

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7??  Break out Binge-watching’s Bitterest-tasting Popcorn

This is the best TV series ever made. And if you haven’t made time for it – make time. That is all.

Come at the king. You’d best not miss.

? Is World vs Virus the best podcast ever made? It’s too early to say but Robin, Linda, and Max have produced another Apple recommended episode! Plus they have a new podcast series – The Great Reset. Take a listen!

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If you enjoy this newsletter – please share it with friends, family, and co-workers!

Hope you’ve liked this week’s sustainably developed, Wire-peddling Walking Dead content, 

Adrian

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With thanks to all those folks without whose encouragement and critical feedback this newsletter would never get written.