Development of two covid-19 vaccines

6 min readNov 28, 2020

What we needed was a spacer to fill in the gap of the old flange. We figured this out through painful trial and error. The failure made us angry and we wouldn’t have gotten to the solution if not for a fortuitous break.

We were really lucky, the floor was in good shape. We tiled in confidence, unsuspecting that the flange was going to rise up to smite us. The first few hours of the job lured us into a false sense of confidence.

I’ll admit, as well, that I’m not naturally so high-minded. Three weeks ago, my dad got sick. A test two days later confirmed that he had contracted the coronavirus. My mom — who, to stem an obstinate and steadily accelerating case of rheumatoid arthritis, had recently started chemo (which of course compromises her immune system, and embeds her firmly in the category of person for whom getting covid is a big fucking deal) — tested negative. But her and my dad live together. In the moment, it felt but a matter of time before she got sick.

Since I read Leitch’s post on this, however, I haven’t been able to shake the admittedly puritan sense that this just isn’t enough. In my life, at least, I want to do more than merely endure the rest of this year; I feel obligated to also try to learn from it — to steep in it, and get to know it, so that it marks me, and so that I emerge from it changed.

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With the ever present need for urgent results, human beings don’t give themselves enough time to stop and think. The inclination is detrimental to our species, and to our quest for individual satisfaction.

I thought of the essay from Nicole Chung, published in Time, about the death this year of her mom; the goodbye they were denied; the funeral she had to plan over FaceTime. I thought of how Marilynne Robinson, in her novel Housekeeping, referred to a character’s death as a “sudden vanishing.” Though my parents had not yet vanished, it was suddenly possible to picture a world — composed of quarantines and consternation and scary, impregnable hospital wards — in which they had.

Miraculously, my dad’s symptoms never became insufferable — though they did seem to suck — and my mom, even more miraculously, never exhibited symptoms at all. Gradually, it became clear that my family would, for now, prove lucky.When you are tired and frustrated, you can’t think straight. That leads to even more mistakes. Sometimes your best course of action is to take a step back and allow your mind to catch back up to the present.As Thanksgiving approaches, however, what’s slowly begun to supplant my guilt is a sense of possibility. As if the ceramic mold of my mind, hardened by misconceptions of maturity, has been warmed to a more humble state of mutability. I feel newly amenable to making changes in my life.

In the old days, they used to affix the toilet to the flange by pouring in molten lead. The flange is still a standard size, but the top platform is only about half as wide as a modern flange. There’s a space to accommodate the lead. This means your wax ring will sink into the space and fail to make a seal.
To let it pass would be a mistake. The reason has to do with the limited way humans learn; historically, we tend only to internalize important lessons the hard way, at the hand of what we’re forcibly made to feel. Pain, specifically, is powerful. It humbles, nullifies pretext, obviates privilege — and reorients perspective. Without pain, truth — whether about relationships, physical health, or the cost of corruption — is just an idea. Reality, likewise, is inconsequential. What’s theoretical can be ignored, but what’s painful must be respected.

Development of two covid-19 vaccines

Written by Quarentinesquad