While many would often first compare the current coronavirus pandemic that we’re facing to the Spanish Flu and World War I, there’s another way to look at it. Maybe this more like WWII, where every single facet of our daily lives was altered (we’re certainly at that point now), and every single one of us changed our daily habits to aid the war effort.

It’s a full on mobilization- whatever you do everyday for work, now you do work that helps the cause. During WWII the car companies switched to making tanks. If everybody does their part, it all adds up, and soon we get through, triumphantly, to the other side of the pandemic.

One such example is Chelsea FC, a southwestern London football/soccer club. Reputable worldwide for their recent success and popular stateside because it’s the club where the most expensive American soccer player in history plays (Christian Pulisic, who was acquired from Borussia Dortmund in January 2019 for $58 million), when Chelsea does something important, it draws awareness.

To combat the COVID19 pandemic, and the shortage in hospital beds that we’ll see if the UK doesn’t flatten the curve, the club is making the team hotel at their home stadium, Stamford Bridge, available to the sick.

The club’s owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, one of the world’s 200 richest men, is picking up the tab. Again while this itself is not a huge game changer, these things all add up. If everyone takes the coronavirus pandemic seriously, and does their part, we’ll beat this thing.

And while our current situation is indeed extremely serious, there is no need to be full on gloom and doom all the time. It would be a lot better for morale if the news outlets here in America would give more attention to any and all of the following eight developments. Perhaps they do not because a lot of the progress is being made overseas, and American media is notoriously ignorant of what is going on outside our borders.

Perhaps they spend less time on these kinds of stories because they do not attract the types of ratings numbers that fear or anger inducing segments do. That is the number one rule of television, keep people watching, and nothing grips you to the tube like fear or anger. (Social media platforms operate this way as well)

Whatever the case, read on about these eight different groups of scientists working on cures and/or a vaccine. They are the real heroes now and should they succeed, this will indeed be their finest hour. So share these developments, in the coronavirus pandemic, with friends and family.

EU Says Germans Could Have a Vaccine Before Autumn

Typically, phrases like “the Germans are on the move, they have a plan!” does NOT put the world at ease, but in this case it’s the opposite. We keep hearing that a vaccine could take a year to a year and a half to come to market. However, Germany and the European Union could actually have that ready in a few months.

South Korea Has Provided the Blueprint on How to Flatten the Curve

“Trace, test, treat” is the phrase that best summates the secret to their success in combating the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, they’ve been through this kind of thing before, with MERS, so they have better experience when it comes to containment. Go here for more on the secrets to their success.

Canadian Scientists have Isolated the Virus

This means they now have the ability to map the DNA, and through sequencing the virus’ building blocks of life, you can then develop a way to kill the infection off. Listen to a news segment on this development here.

French Have a Treatment Regimen that Seems to Be Working

Azithromycin (AZT, the drug used with HIV patients) plus plaquenil gets results in treating COVID-19 patients

A glimmer of hope on #COVID2019 from a French lab: plaquenil combined with azithromycin cured patients in a matter of days. This is a small scale non-randomized clinical trial but still promising results… https://t.co/TpD57CiuqG pic.twitter.com/yzBerdHWWa

— Xavier Didelot (@XavierDidelot) March 17, 2020

Australia also claims to have a cure

According to the Daily Mail, the two drugs are Chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, and HIV-suppressing combination lopinavir/ritonavir. It is of course, extremely important to remember that 1.) some of these drugs have nasty side effects and 2.) we’re a long way from generalizability for the population at large. 

China Health Official Says Japanese Flu Treatment Gets Results 

Shares in Japanese concern Fujifilm Toyama Chemical soared this week because they’re the makers of Favipiravir, an influenza drug that gets results, according to a leading Chinese Health Department official. Again, be cautiously, optimistic with all these developments as much more testing is needed for external validity beyond anecdotal evidence.

Human Trials Have Already Begun on a Vaccine in Seattle 

A Q&A, via CrossCut, with Dr. Deborah Fuller, a vaccinologist and professor of microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Knoxville Scientists, Aided By a Supercomputer are Working on a Cure

Knoxville is about to be known for something much bigger than the Sunsphere from the 1982 World’s Fair, and The Simpsons episode depicting it.

Via Go Vols

With the help of Summit, the world’s most powerful supercomputer, through a partnership between the University of Tennessee and the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers tested how more than 8,000 chemical compounds interacted with the virus, according to a report this week from Knoxville’s WBIR-TV.

Of course, there will be a lot of tough times ahead, and things will get worse before they get better. However, we know the enemy now and there is an abundance of progress already being made by medical science. There’s no reason to think we won’t ultimately get through the coronavirus pandemic.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No,  I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation. 

You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.

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