Remember when the pandemic started and some people were really into baking bread?Lots of people embr

Remember when the pandemic started and some people were really into baking bread?

Lots of people embraced the comfort of sourdough to get them through the frightening first months of the pandemic. Ironically, the reason we can eat bread at all is because thousands of years ago a virus helped us develop a new enzyme that made it easier to digest carbohydrates.

Viruses have developed hand-in-hand with humankind, sometimes — as we’ve seen with COVID-19 — to deadly effect. Humans have fought back, developing in the process the concept of vaccines, with the first effective, modern vaccine coming on the scene more than 200 years ago.

Today’s COVID-19 vaccines work in much the same way as those early inoculations but are safer and more effective. It’s true that they were developed with historic speed — but only because they were built on decades of basic research that allowed us to deliver them in record time.