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Now here's today's news, discerned differently.

Donald McNeil is the New York Times Science and Health reporter focusing on plagues.

He has become a household name for many over the past several months due to his early and

consistent reporting on the coronavirus pandemic. His article this week in the Times titled

A Dose of Optimism as as the pandemic rages on, has therefore

drawn significant attention. McNeil reports that non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as mask

wearing and social distancing, have made a huge difference in lives saved. Now he focuses on pharmaceutical interventions such as

vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. On this front, he has become cautiously optimistic, citing experts

who are saying with genuine confidence that the pandemic in the United States will be over

far sooner than they expected, possibly by the middle

of next year. We have already fared far better than we did during the Spanish influenza,

the pandemic to which this one is often compared. It costs 675,000 lives in a country of 103 million,

a toll equivalent to 2 million dead today. In addition,

the flu season in the southern hemisphere was almost non-existent this year because of social

distancing and mask wearing. As a result, if Americans get their flu shots, we can hope to avoid

a twin-demic of coronavirus and influenza. Monoclonal antibodies

such as the regimen given to President Trump are making progress, and the FDA is likely to begin

approval of vaccines sometime in the next three months. Such progress is expected to catalyze markets

and jumpstart the global economy.

This is very good news, coming at a time when we need such pandemic-related hope.

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