Tell Me When It’s Over: An Insider’s Guide to Deciphering Covid Myths and Navigating Our Post-Pandemic World

This enlightening explainer from Offit (You Bet Your Life), director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, provides a physician’s perspective on the Covid-19 pandemic. Following a q&a format, Offit weighs in on queries related to such topics as vaccine development, misinformation, and flawed messaging from government officials. Answering “how were Covid vaccines made so quickly,” Offit tells how in spring 2020, an $11 billion infusion from the federal government allowed pharmaceutical companies to mass produce vaccines that were still in clinical trials because if the vaccines turned out to be ineffective, they could “be thrown away at no financial risk to the companies.” Pushing back against the theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab, Offit explains that mutated spike proteins “virtually identical” to the one found in SARS-CoV-2 have been identified in multiple bat coronaviruses, suggesting the modification “was already present in nature” and not the result of human meddling. Looking ahead, Offit notes that even as Covid death rates come to resemble those of the flu, that still means up to 60,000 deaths in the U.S. annually. He advises anyone with respiratory symptoms to stay home until they recover from the virus. Skillfully combining scientific precision with an accessible style, this brings clarity to the uncertainties of the pandemic. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency. (Feb.)