Women are the ones great forgotten in Phase 2. Women who were left out of commissions and task forces. It’s the women who will have to give up work to look after their children at home. Women who have always been pushed into a corner (often sadly physically and violently) from a beautiful country but still too obtuse and patriarchal. A country that finds it hard to remember how two of its supreme excellences, probably the greatest of all, are women. For the first time together to face the emergency in the world: Capua and Gianotti. Spearheads of an extraordinary but distracted country. So let’s pay attention to them.
Two women leading a international team with one goal: to develop collective intelligence, to cross the mountain of data and to study new solutions to help science get out of this pandemic. We are talking about the virologist Ilaria Capua, director of the University of Florida’s One Health Center of Excellence, and physicist Fabiola Gianotti, general director of CERN in Geneva. They developed a project that sees different personalities from the scientific world try to make important steps in research. An ambitious project at the beginning of Phase 2 when many doubts remain open.
Capua and Gianotti, two faces known to Italians
A virologist who participates in many television programs and a physicist who is driving one of the most important research centers. Capua and Gianotti promise to take important steps in the field of research against the virus. “We will defeat Covid-19 with collective intelligence” is their motto. Scientists involved in the project will study the data on the possible causes and effects of the virus on the planet. In fact, the starting point is data. “CERN has an open access archive called Zenodo – Capua explained to Huffingtonpost. Inside, an area dedicated to Covid will be developed where it will be possible to upload any kind of data.” These are data collected by hospitals and people, or those concerning pollution, rain, humidity.
The remote meeting between Capua and Gianotti to fight Covid
The two scientists had the opportunity to compare and develop this common project. This synergy has created a space dedicated to Covid, organized and managed by Cern, with the support of research groups. “My interdisciplinary team is called Yellow Submarine – added Capua – it occurred to us thinking how we were all compressed but full of energy during a video conference on Covid. It includes scientists from the University of Florida, CERN, ISI in Turin and important Italian and foreign research institutes.” It includes mathematicians, physicists, economists, engineers, doctors, veterinarians, agronomists, climate experts. A coordinated action, therefore, a set of collective intelligence with Capua and Gianotti at the head, to get to the finish line.
The importance of data collection and comparison
The interdisciplinary group, therefore, will deal with comparing the various data collected according to the different sectors. A project open to all research groups interested in studying Covid. Because, as Capua reiterated, Covid touches on various areas. The biomedical field first of all but also families, businesses, agriculture, workers, nature, culture. A concrete example is the section dedicated to nature, which will see the collaboration of Fai, the Italian Environment Fund. We will try to understand how nature is awakening without pollution. Analyzing bees, butterflies, the plant species most sensitive to pollution. “The idea – says Capua – is to combine the discussion of health with nature’s resilience, realizing how fundamental the context is”.
Vaccine and treatment, where things stand
The time for the vaccine fro Covid is still long according to Capua. “In September they will have the data to tell if the vaccine works – she says -, that is, if it gives neutralizing immunity. It takes time to get the vaccine. Then many monitorings of harmlessness, effectiveness, absence of contaminants are needed. At best, we will have it in December. Then the problem will be scaling up the number of doses. If we assume that all Europeans and all Americans want to have mass immunisation, almost a billion doses will be needed. In three months millions of doses can be made, certainly not enough for everyone”. On therapies, Capua points out that antiviral ones are giving better answers. And here too there is a race between the various studies for a therapeutic protocol that could arrive before the vaccine.
An invitation to common sense for Phase 2
Capua’s invitation to the population is clear for Phase 2: to find behaviors that allow for a normal social life. However, only by making the individual responsible for the importance of his behavior. “Each of us – she says – must act in a smart way to protect their health. It is not the problem of government, it is the problem of the individual. If the individual does not behave in proportion to his risk factor, or that of his relatives, he’s the one who does damage, it is not the government that does damage.”
Featured image by Ani Kolleshi