The Long Game of Coronavirus Research

Last month, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke at a biotech conference, where he emphasized how much is still unknown about the coronavirus. "I thought H.I.V. was a complicated disease," he said. "It's really simple compared to what's going on with COVID-19." To anyone who knows the history of AIDS research--Fauci has spent much of his career studying the disease--this was a dismaying thing to hear. In 1984, President Reagan's Health and Human Services Secretary, Margaret Heckler, said, "We hope to have a vaccine ready for testing in about two years."