One doctor’s campaign to stop a covid-19 vaccine being rushed through before Election Day

Dozens of volunteers will be deliberately infected with covid-19 in the UK 

Sponsored by Financial Times The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology 10.20.20 Good morning! Today: one doctor's campaign to stop a covid-19 vaccine being rushed through pre-election, volunteers in the UK will be deliberately infected with the coronavirus, and this election could permanently change how American votes. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. One doctor’s campaign to stop a covid-19 vaccine being rushed through before Election Day   What’s happening: Eric Topol, a heart expert and researcher with a huge Twitter following, has made it his personal mission to ensure the Trump administration cannot rush a covid-19 vaccine through regulatory authorization before Election Day on November 3.  How? To prevent such a scenario, Topol led online calls for FDA commissioner Steve Hahn to resign after his agency was criticized for cowing to political pressure—and then phoned Hahn a number of times to urge him to resist Trump’s influence. Topol also targeted Pfizer, the only pharmaceutical company likely to seek approval of its vaccine before Election Day, which eventually set up a meeting for him with its vaccine team. Why? If Trump badgered the US Food and Drug Administration into prematurely releasing a vaccine that wasn’t effective, or even caused harm, it could shake the public’s trust in any covid-19 vaccine. And if we are to achieve wide immunity against SARS-CoV-2, we'll need to vaccinate more people than the number that get flu shots each year. Releasing a vaccine that people are afraid of could do more harm than good.  Mixed success: Pfizer has said it won’t apply for authorization for its vaccine until late November, as that’s how long it will take for safety data to come back. But while a vaccine approval before November 3 may now be out of the question, other medical developments in the fight against covid-19 could still come into play during the countdown to the vote. Both Regeneron and Eli Lilly have filed for emergency use for their antibody drugs, and they could be authorized before Election Day. Read the full story. —Antonio Regalado Dozens of volunteers will be deliberately infected with covid-19 in the UK The news: Young, healthy people will be deliberately infected with covid-19 in the first ever “human challenge trial”, set to begin at a London hospital in January. The study, announced today, will recruit up to 50 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 30. It will take place at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, if it gets ethical and regulatory approval. Volunteers will be paid, isolated for the duration of the study, and monitored for up to a year afterwards to check for any side effects.  Why do this? The hope is that this trial will make it easier to closely study the disease, with the aim of speeding up the development of a vaccine. In the first phase of the trial, researchers would try to work out the smallest level of exposure required for someone to catch covid-19. Next, they could test if a vaccine prevents infection. The benefit of this approach is that it lets researchers study vaccine candidates side-by-side to see which is the most effective. Controversial: There are obvious risks. The volunteers could become seriously ill, and even die. There are huge trials underway to test treatments and vaccines in people who are already being infected with covid-19 naturally. And given the challenge study doesn’t start until January, we may already be close to having an effective vaccine by then.  The 2020 election could permanently change how America votes What’s happening: More than 29 million voters have already cast their ballots in the 2020 US elections. At the same point in 2016, the number of early votes was about 6 million. But while a great deal of this is the result of the ongoing (and worsening) covid-19 crisis, America’s top election official says that the shift to early and mail-in voting could become permanent. Some history: Oregon is the state that has really blazed a trail for American mail-in voting. When the idea first popped up in 1981, there were skeptics and opponents everywhere. But it held its first general election by mail-in vote in 2000, and the process has been repeated again and again in the last two decades. Utah, a heavily Republican state, has voted by mail for eight years—and both voters and politicians like it that way. Turnout is higher and costs are lower. Reasons to be optimistic: There were huge concerns about how the election process would cope with the mass switch to early and mail-in voting. They mostly haven’t come to pass. “Frankly, it’s going well,” says Hovland. Read the full story. —Patrick Howell O’Neill We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + A sleepy, chatty otter. Who likes to cuddle kittens. And—of course—play in rivers.   + Happy 13th birthday to the none pizza with left beef.    + Like card tricks? Here’s a fun Japanese movie-themed one for you.    + The brilliance of British police shows.    + There’s something so serene about underwater hippos.    + You can watch performances by Captain Beefheart, T. Rex, Led Zeppelin, Kraftwerk and lots of other great bands on the YouTube channel for the Beat Club, a German music program that ran from 1965 to 1972.   + Backyard birding is the perfect pandemic pastime. (NYT $) Sponsor Message Navigate a crisis like no other with the Financial Times The global emergency means it’s never been harder to be a leader. At the Financial Times, our journalists are asking how will businesses navigate the downturn while doing right by employees and society? Read more here. The top ten must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 New York’s schools have reported surprisingly few infections Its approach could serve as a model for elsewhere. (NYT $)   + How to pull the US’s fragmented healthcare data together into one place. (The Verge)   + Some people are still needlessly disinfecting everything. (Wired UK)  2 What went wrong in Wisconsin It was meant to become a high-tech hub. Instead, taxpayers paid hundreds of millions for nothing. (The Verge)   3 Microphones will be muted for parts of Thursday’s presidential debate This might help to make it almost bearable. (Axios)   + How social media exacerbates division in the US. (WSJ $)   + Joe Biden is very offline. Maybe that’s a good thing. (Wired $)   + How to cope with the daily deluge of misinformation. (Wired $)   + AP’s election results will power voice assistants’ queries. (Axios)  4 AI has exacerbated racial bias in housing. Could it help eliminate it instead? The jury is still out. (TR)   + Facebook’s new polyglot AI can translate between 100 languages. (TR)   + Companies generally aren’t seeing a great payoff for adopting AI. (Wired $)  5 Russian hackers targeted the Tokyo Olympics, say UK officials Most probably in response to being excluded from them. (BBC)   + Six Russians responsible for some of the world’s most destructive hacks have been indicted in the US. (Ars Technica)   + This is what unrestrained internet warfare looks like. (The Guardian)  6 Pakistan has unbanned TikTok The company has promised to respect local social norms. (Engadget)   + Rumors by Fleetwood Mac is a top 10 album again this week, thanks to TikTok. (The Verge)   + TikTok is cracking down on QAnon. (NPR)  7 Don’t think Google’s monopoly affects you? Try searching for t-shirts  Chances are, you’ll have to scroll through a fair few ads masquerading as search results. (WP $)   8 The battle to banish the fax in Japan But one man’s progress is another’s sad loss. (WSJ $)   9 Want to conquer your anxiety? Listen to your heart ❤️ Neuroscience is revealing that the heart and body exert huge influence over the brain. (Wired UK)   10 Nokia is building a 4G network for the moon 👩‍🚀 Astronauts gotta stay in touch. (CNBC) Don't settle for half the story.  MIT Technology Review delivers insights on today's technologies and their impact upon our collective future through a trustworthy lens you won't find anywhere else. Get unlimited access when you subscribe today. Quote of the day “Words like ‘bone,’ ‘pubic,’ and ‘stream’ are frankly ridiculous to ban in a field where we regularly find pubic bones in streams.” —A participant at a virtual paleontology conference tells Vice the software had a somewhat overzealous profanity filter. Top image credit: MS TECH | UNSPLASH, GETTY Please send none pizza with left beef to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up for free From prevention to response Join us online | December 2-3, 2020 Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Want to change how you receive these emails? 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