OF#32 – Failure, High Speed Miracles, and Karate
Is failure even real? How did we get COVID vaccines so fast? And should seniors be learning Karate?
Hi there, I’m Thomas Najar. Welcome to issue 32 of Open Frame.
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Reframing Failure
We are wired to experience fear when we attempt something new or venture into the unknown. We also overreact to perceived failure. This combination can prevent us from pursuing what’s important or giving up quickly if at first we don’t succeed.
BigThink have collected words of wisdom to help us recontextualize failure and inspire us to keep trying.
The COVID Vaccine Miracle
in March, 2020, the COVID-19 became undeniably real here in America. One year later, there are three vaccines authorized for use by the CDC. The speedy development of COVID vaccines may be the greatest achievement in medical history.
Jason Kottke lists six reasons why the vaccines were developed so quickly. Some of the factors are obvious, such as urgent need, but others are less so. SARS and MERS provided a foundation for understanding coronaviruses. And the effort to develop a vaccine practically ignored risk.
Companies and governments threw billions and billions of dollars at this. Companies, research centers, and scientists dropped other stuff they were working on to study SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19. Governments prioritized regulatory approval for trials, etc. From a thread by Dr. Kat Arney:
Relatively few in the scientific, pharma & policy worlds care about vaccines compared w/ drugs. Most vaccine programmes are underfunded as they’re perceived as not profitable, only relevant to LMICs, & have few research groups/companies working on them. Getting funding & research capacity for vax usually takes months/years. COVID-19 vaccine was a massive global research effort w/ $millions for multiple groups/projects in weeks. Years of funding cycles & lab research happened in months, huge amount of time saved.
And from a presentation given by Dr. Anthony Fauci:
We proceeded at risk. So people say, what do you mean by “at risk”? Are you risking safety? Are you risking scientific integrity? No, it’s a financial risk. In other words, you invest in things that cost a lot of money before you even have an answer to whether the prior step worked.
And a classic example is the production of large scale amounts of clinical lots, which have been produced and are being produced before you even know that your vaccine works, so that you have hundreds of millions of doses ready to go. If the vaccine works, you’ve saved many months. If the vaccine doesn’t, you lost a lot of money, to the tune of hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. But it was felt it was worth that investment and that risk financially in order to save time.
[…]
As Dr. Faheem Younus put it, “We didn’t cut corners; we cut the crap!”
Kind of Blue
Shawn Theodore is a photographer with a new exhibition, Night Stars. In it, Theodore uses a variety of techniques to capture an array of subjects with one common theme, the color blue.
(via Colossal)
Intergenerational Karate
Jeff Wall, Jr. was a Karate prodigy at age 6. At age 10, he was inducted into the Martial Arts Hall of Fame. It seems natural he would become an instructor himself.
In this inspiring and heartwarming film, we learn about Jeffrey’s evolution as a Karate instructor to seniors.
That’s it for this week folks. Have a great week, stay safe, and remember to be awesome!
Thomas