COVID-19 silver lining - Globally coordinated research into new treatments
At least one positive thing has come out of this COVID-19 crisis so far.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-05/world-leaders-donate-12.5-billion-coronavirus-vaccine-research/12214494 It is not so much that Australia is joining this collective fight to find treatments etc for this virus.
It is that globally , there has been far too little investment in research and development of new antibiotics and anti-bacterial treatments, as drug-resistance grows to current antibiotics. People like Jim O'Neill have been trying to raise global awareness of this problem - so that there can be more money focused collectively on this global problem. But the world has been too blasé, too complacent to put this effort in. And now maybe, COVID-19 has kindled the collective motivation to drive such global efforts with COVID-19 being the initial focus. So there can be a silver lining in a dark cloud.
With the world’s attention on COVID-19, I believe that now is the time to talk about another pandemic that’s been happening right under our noses: antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The United Nations, the World Health Organization and even the World Bank recognize AMR as a public health and economic disaster waiting to happen. In 2016, United Kingdom economist Jim O’Neill and his team published a report stating that if we do not address the growing threat of AMR, by 2050 more people will die from drug-resistant infections than from cancer.
