COVID-19 Vaccines Are Coming: But They’re Not What You Think These novel approaches could fail in many ways. "The RNA-vaccine approach has one great advantage: speed. Scientists merely need to know the virus’s genetic sequence, and they can synthesize and scale up production of an RNA vaccine in a matter of weeks. RNA is fragile. In a lab, you have to shield your face to work with it, not because it is dangerous but because you are dangerous to it. Even a gust of saliva is likely to contain enzymes that would rip RNA apart, rendering it worthless. As long as it’s formulated properly, RNA is considered nearly harmless to inject into humans, and a Phase 1 trial like this is easy to begin. Success is hardly assured, but we at least know that the RNA won’t hurt the people in the trial who are being paid $1,100 to have it injected into them. It is a clever approach—but don’t eat through your boxes of stockpiled wholesale ramen too quickly, because no one can or should guarantee that an RNA vaccine will stop the pandemic anytime soon." "There is another option, less ambitious but more likely to work, and with a calendar for deployment perhaps as short as three to four weeks, with results four weeks later. We’ll call it the human-blood-bag approach. If you survive COVID-19—and to date, 86,025 people have done so—it’s because your body wised up to the attack and learned to fight it off. (No pharmaceutical therapy seems to do much good, so for now your body is on its own, immunologically speaking.) Congratulations: You now produce antibodies to the coronavirus. And if you are willing to share them, you are now someone’s new best friend."