Inside the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine with Brendan Borrell

Inquiring Minds

Science, Society & Culture, Neuroscience, Female Host, Interview, Social Sciences, Critical Thinking

4.4 • 848 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In early 2020, experts predicted the development of the COVID-19 vaccine would take 12 to 18 months. Fast forward to today and there are at least five vaccines approved by the World Health Organization. Joining Indre today is Brendan Borrell, a health scientist and business journalist who’s written for The Atlantic, National Geographic, Wired, and The New York Times. He also happens to be the author of a new book, The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine, and in today’s show, he discusses his book, providing valuable insights into the early days of the virus, the political football and money plays involved, and other enthralling details surrounding the race to the COVID-19 vaccine. Show Links: Inquiring Minds Podcast Homepage Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds See https://omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information. The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds

Transcript

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0:00.0	You and Betty and the Nancy's and Bill's and Joes and Jane's will find in the study of science
0:06.4	a richer, more rewarding life.
0:10.7	Welcome to Inquiring Minds. I'm Indravis Gontas.
0:14.2	This is a podcast that explores the space where science and society collide.
0:18.2	We want to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it matters.
0:26.6	Over the past many months, and now almost two years, I have to say, inquiring minds has been kind of a sanctuary for me,
0:38.7	in part because we refuse to cover COVID-19 science. I liked knowing that I could still do my
0:45.5	science journalism work, I could still go in-depth into the scientific topics I love,
0:50.8	I loved, and take a break from all the pandemic news that's bombarding us all the time.
0:56.7	But now that it's been a couple of years almost since we started to learn about this virus,
1:03.0	I thought maybe it was time to start looking back and seeing what we might learn as a society
1:09.2	from the scientists that have gotten us to this
1:12.1	point in the pandemic. So to take us there, I wanted to talk to Brendan Burrell. He's a health
1:18.0	science and business journalist, and he's written for the Atlantic and National Geographic,
1:23.8	Wired, The New York Times. And he just wrote a book called The First Shots, the epic rivalries and
1:31.3	heroic science behind the race to the coronavirus vaccine. And I have to say, it reads like a great
1:38.0	mystery novel. But there's so much useful information in this book about the origins of the virus,
1:46.1	about how these vaccines were developed, and what makes them different from other vaccines in our history, and about what
1:51.0	that might mean for us in the future.
1:56.9	Brendan Burrell, welcome to Inquiring Lines.
2:00.4	Hi there. Thanks for having me.
2:01.9	So as our listeners will know, we or I at least declared Inquiring Minds a COVID-19 free zone at the start of the pandemic.
	...

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