Scientific Momentum Must Keep Going After Pandemic: NIH Chief

Without a home run antiviral for Covid-19, Francis S. Collins wants a big push to develop a treatment from scratch to prepare for future pandemics or a new coronavirus.

That work will likely take two to three years and definitely require more funding, the longtime director of the National Institutes of Health acknowledged. By then the nation should be long past herd immunity in the present crisis, which could happen this fall if 70% to 85% of the U.S. population receives their vaccines. But even with the unprecedented success of vaccine development for Covid-19—much of which built on decades of ...