An End in Sight

Last year humanity confronted our biggest challenge in a century. Science helped us see the light at the end of the tunnel. But we need to keep moving forward to emerge.

Written byBob Grant

| 2 min read

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I would be lying if I said I’m not overjoyed that the dateline appearing on this article says something other than 2020. It was a rough year, to one degree or another, for all of us. But as much as I would love to view 2021 as a close to the trials and tribulations of 2020, I also know that even though the calendar has flipped, we’re not out of the pandemic-wracked woods yet. With the US FDA approvals of two COVID-19 vaccines late last year, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re still traveling through it.

SARS-CoV-2 wrought so much damage in 2020—economies hobbled, businesses obliterated, families divided, lives lost—that it’s hard to see silver linings. But the fact that the scientific community was able to understand, treat, and eventually vaccinate against the virus within 12 months is ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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