The New Way of Dealing with Pandemics
Why COVID-19 will be humanity’s last pandemic
Including the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had 5 pandemics since the start of the century. That’s 5 pandemics in 20 years.
If you don’t know what a pandemic is by now, it’s a disease that is prevalent globally. The last 5 pandemics were: SARS, Swine Flu, MERS, Ebola, and the current COVID-19.
Honourable mention: HIV/AIDS but the WHO calls it a “Global Epidemic”
But the first-ever pandemic in recorded human history was the Antonine Plague in 165–180, and after 1900+ years, we’re still being greatly affected by pandemics.
Why is that?
This is due to our approach as a species.
We have adopted a heavily reactive approach to major issues, look at global warming, poverty, wars, and this list goes on.
It took us an entire economic crash for banks and mortgage brokers to realize that maybe, just maybe, someone making about $30k a year shouldn’t be financing 3 houses and a condo at the same time.
After 2000+ years of recorded history, I think it’s a safe bet to say that our current approach just isn’t working. I don’t know about you but I don’t want us to go through social isolation and an economic recession every 100 years or so.
This method simply fails because when we react to a specific situation, we create a solution that will only work for that situation and avoid repeating the same situation, however, history never repeats itself in the exact same situation. Or else the method that stopped the first war would work for all the following wars, but that's far from reality.
So if this approach doesn’t work, what do we do?
It’s actually quite simple; we move to a more proactive approach.
Let me give you an example:
One approach is to wait until your house catches fire from a gas stove, reacting to the damage and building a house with only electric stoves. But the problem with that is that a gas-stove isn’t the only way a house can catch fire.
The approach I’m suggesting is simply putting fire detectors and sprinklers to avoid having the house burned down to the ground in the first place.
We’ve been using this approach in many areas of life already.
Namely in the form of insurance.
So if we can pay hundreds of dollars a month, to make sure we’re okay in case something bad happens, in our day-to-day lives; why are we waiting for a pandemic to realize flaws in our approach?
What is the insurance equivalent of a pandemic solution?
I present to you:
Antidote X
No, I’m not talking about the Powerpuff Girls’ version of Kryptonite, I’m talking about an antidote that can be used to fight off any pathogen.
So far what we’ve done is try and calculate a solution with only constants. Although it gives us a solution, the world isn’t in a constant state. It has variability and our solutions need to as well.
I know this sounds farfetched and anyone with a working understanding of pathogens and genetics probably thinks I’m crazy. But crazy isn’t impossible. 100 years ago, the idea of a 16x11 inch object that can do anything from getting information to making a call to your grandma, seemed crazy; today we call it a laptop.
Given the fact that 100 years seems like the average time in between pandemics that cause social isolation, at our rate of exponential growth, this idea might not be as crazy as it seems — by the time the next pandemic hits.
How are we going to do this?
Its simple, QML Drug Discovery!
Well, maybe not that simple. If you’re not familiar with those buzz-words, QML is Quantum Machine Learning. Put simply, a regular computer works in bits, which are either 0 or 1, whereas quantum computers can work in a state of superposition. Essentially, a quantum bit or ‘qubit’ can be both a 0 and 1 at the same time.
To put it into perspective, a regular computer with 2 bits can process at a speed of 2n whereas 2 qubits can process at a speed of n².
Machine Learning is basically what the name suggests. ML algorithms become better at doing what they’re supposed to do as they gain more data-points and experience. It teaches itself based on its past outputs on how to get closer to the desired output.
Now that you’re a quantum computing expert, you can see how having a computer that processes information exponentially faster and can learn from its mistakes, can lead us to sequence the pathogens’ genetic material, formulate an antidote, and chemically test it.
This is super helpful as the quantum computer can fail a few attempts and exponentially learn what it did wrong when synthesizing the virus.
At its root, a big problem is that we cannot form a taxonomy(classification of species, or in this case viruses, by their similarities and differences) of viruses. They rarely share the same genetic material or come from similar ancestors, let alone the same one. Viruses also mutate, which means every time there is a new virus, we start from square one.
With QML, even if we start at square one, we will be able to get to the finish line exponentially faster. This means no more social isolation and long lines at Costco.
Not to mention limit the possibility for the virus to become a pandemic, and save millions of lives globally.
These are uncertain times, I hope you and your family are keeping well and staying safe.
That being said, this time in quarantine can be turned into a once-in-a-century opportunity(literally), so make the most out of it(from home)!
If you enjoyed this:
- Stay tuned for more.
- Feel free to tell me how you’ve been staying sane during this quarantine👍🏽
