© Jamie Hawkesworth
Culture & Living
With at least three promising vaccines on the horizon, we meet six inspiring women from around the world working around the clock to beat the pandemic
Scientists found themselves in the spotlight more than ever this year, as the global science community scrambled to find a vaccine that could tackle COVID-19. These unprecedented efforts to create a working, safe vaccine have started returning some incredibly positive results. In recent weeks, three pharmaceutical companies—Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca—have reported high success rates in early studies of their vaccines, and it’s now possible that one of them could be in use before the end of the year. The next big question is whether enough people will agree to be vaccinated.
Vaccines usually take years to develop, so understandably people have concerns about taking something that has been discovered in a matter of months. These worries are being amplified by an increasingly vocal anti-vax movement who are using social media platforms to share their often unsubstantiated views and conspiracy theories about the dangers of vaccination.
A recent World Economic Forum-Ipsos survey found that if a COVID-19 vaccine was available, only 64 per cent of Americans would take it, compared to 83 per cent of the population in South Korea. In France, meanwhile, levels of vaccine confidence are so low that currently, only 54 per cent would agree to it. Hesitancy is such a serious concern that, with the support of the United Nations, scientists and doctors around the world working on a vaccine have joined forces under the umbrella of Team Halo.
This communications project is kind of like Avengers Assemble, but for the science world—it connects people across all levels working on vaccine trials and development and encourages them to talk openly via social media about the concerns surrounding a COVID-19 vaccine. And they’re doing it primarily on TikTok, where leading scientists are demystifying the process via simple and accessible explanations to a rapidly growing and engaged audience. Anna Nolan, co-director of Team Halo, has spoken about the importance of humanising the scientists who are working to create a solution: “[We need] a human face on the real people working on vaccines.”
We spoke to women from the US, UK, South Africa, India and Brazil—all scientists connected by Team Halo—about the work they’re doing and their personal experiences of the pandemic.
Galit Alter is as enthusiastic as she is impressive. “I’ve been chasing viruses ever since I started my career,” she says, via Zoom. “I have always been in the wake of these devastating pandemics, you guys just haven’t seen them.” Of course, COVID-19 has been impossible for any of us to avoid. “Look at how this virus has changed the world. It’s completely changed the way we do science,” she adds. Alter is a world expert on antibodies and has spent this year working on her research. “I’ve been working 24 hours a day on science while also trying to homeschool my [twin] daughters.” Her husband, a doctor also working on COVID-19 vaccine trials, is currently quarantining upstairs as his job at the hospital exposed him to the virus.
For the past few months, the only time Alter has left the house is to strap her kids in the back of the car and “shuttle infected people’s samples from one laboratory to the next.” She saw some semblance of normality resume in August when the schools reopened. “I came back to life—for the first time in seven months, I got out of my yoga pants.” As a professor and educator at Harvard University, Massachusetts, Alter has hopes for the next generation she is educating. “My wish for every young person is that they do something they can give back to the world. That’ll be the most wonderful feeling—when you look back on your life and you did something that really made a difference.” Looking to the future, Alter sees some positives that could come from the pandemic. “Maybe coronavirus can create a whole new generation of virus hunters, like me?”
These two extraordinary women work at the heart of the community on vaccine and infectious diseases research in Johannesburg, Soweto and Thembelihle townships. This year, a big part of their job has been working on the ground, helping people understand how important testing and screening is. The impact of COVID-19 in these communities is heartbreaking, the pair point out. There have been many COVID-related deaths, with some families losing their main financial earner.
“People are unable to travel to work, to access education or training,” says Sello, via Zoom. And these women have been directly affected, too; Sello lost her sister and Thaele her mother to COVID-19. Both know there’s a constant risk they could bring the infection home with them. “This has been a challenging time. This has not been a good year,” says Sello. The two aren’t just colleagues, they’re friends. They study and work together, and when they do get free time, they hang out together. Having each other has been invaluable. “During this time, everyone needs support and we were there for each other,” says Thaele. “We were able to grieve together.”
In reality, people in the communities that Thaele and Sello work in might be further back in the vaccine queue than those in richer countries whose economic status might give them the first option. But the two analysts are optimistic and think that a vaccine will be welcomed. “People are aware of the benefit of vaccines,” explains Sello. “Mothers have been taking their children for vaccinations and we’ve lowered the mortality rate of under-fives.”
An American doctor working at Imperial College London on its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Dr Blakney’s work has been closely followed by people around the world — both scientific communities, and those closer to home. “At the beginning of the crisis, I would send out a newsletter to my aunt, uncles and grandma about COVID-19, and they were forwarding it on to everybody,” she says over Zoom.
As well as being a scientist, Dr Blakney can also add ‘TikTok star’ to her CV. In just a few weeks, she has attracted 190,000 followers to her TikTok account, where she posts super creative, fun and informative content from her laboratory. “People come for the entertainment and hopefully stay for the science,” she says. Her approach seems to be working, with one of her videos being watched more than 11m times in 24 hours. Dr Blakney’s attitude to talking about science and vaccines is incredibly rational and realistic. “We often think of pro-vax or anti-vax as binary— you’re either for one or the other. But, actually, the majority of people fall in the middle. It’s not us and them, it’s an open conversation”. With her rising status as a bona fide social media star and her American-in-Europe status, we asked her if she’s a kind of Emily in Paris of the vaccine world? “Well, I actually speak English,” was her instant reply.
Dr Ruby Raphael is part of the vaccine trials team at the Nizam’s Institute in South India, where she is currently completing her doctorate of medicine. “It was like science couldn’t even figure out this virus initially,” she says of the complexities and challenges of COVID-19. However, working out how to combat a brand-new disease has fired up the scientific community in India. “Everybody is learning right now, even 60-year-old, 70-year-old doctors. Everyone is trying to figure out exactly what is happening.”
Dr Raphael has, like all of us, found this year challenging, not least because she’s been separated from her family who live in Dubai. “Because of COVID, I don’t even go to my neighbour’s house. They’re older, and I could be an asymptomatic carrier.” Dr Raphael has found new ways of switching off from work, which includes making TikTok videos and baking—she’s made a special cake to celebrate each phase of the vaccine trial process that gets completed. She hoped 2020 might be the year that she got married, but her time has been fully focused on her work. “Social distancing, masks and a vaccine are how we will beat this,” she adds.
For Natália Pasternak, being well known in her home country of Brazil as a science spokesperson is a role that’s tougher and more important than ever right now. The country is run by President Jair Bolsonaro, who is not just anti-science but appears almost at war with it. “He speaks against the use of masks and social distancing, he promotes miracle drugs, and that’s why I speak against the government,” says Pasternak on Zoom. “It’s not a political thing, it’s a science thing. I’m completely neutral in my politics when it comes to work.” She’s an inspiring person whose love of science fiction grew into her life as a scientist. “Being a scientist is part of me,” she adds.
But being a woman in the science world isn’t always easy. “It’s much more difficult to speak about science when you’re a woman. You get a lot of nasty comments about your appearance, about your looks. Things that would never be said of my male colleagues.” When Pasternak got involved with Team Halo, she had to quickly throw herself into the unfamiliar world of TikTok. “I don’t really use Facebook or Instagram so TikTok was a new universe to me. But one of my videos has already had 100,000 views. Do you know how long my TED Talk took to reach that?”
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