Good morning, Quartz readers!
The rising Covid-19 case counts are a brutal reminder that the pandemic is far from over. But developments in potential vaccines are finally giving public health researchers reasons to be hopeful: This week, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford announced (via a press release) that their candidate could block an average of 70% of Covid-19 cases, based on interim data from late-stage clinical trials. The news followed similar announcements from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
Each of these groups is vying to be the first to reach the public with a vaccine, an accomplishment that would certainly go down in history. (The normal vaccine development timeline is nearly a decade.) But being first is a potentially empty victory. The real winner will be the vaccine that can prevent the greatest number of cases in the greatest number of people. That means not just achieving efficacy in randomized, controlled trials, but in the real world, where the vaccine will serve more vulnerable populations.
The most obvious group of vulnerable adults is the elderly, who are by far the most likely to develop severe complications as a result of the virus. Here, the Pfizer/BioNTech candidate seems to be the leader: According to the company’s press release, trial participants aged 55+ enjoyed similar protection from Covid-19 as younger participants.
Vulnerable populations also include those in poorer countries or regions. So far, AstraZeneca’s candidate may be the cheapest at $6 to $8 dollars for both doses (compared with $40+ for the others), and the only one storable using standard refrigeration. More expensive to begin with, Pfizer and Moderna’s candidates require specialized, super-cold freezers that don’t come cheap.
At the end of the day, no single vaccine is going to be the savior. Instead we’re likely to see a network of different vaccines—some of them may not even be on our radar yet—with different advantages and disadvantages, working in concert to cover the globe. The true “winners and losers” will emerge during deployment, when we can see each candidate’s real-world successes and challenges for ourselves. That race is far from won. —Katherine Ellen Foley
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
Credit is getting twisted. It might be reasonable to think in 2020 that Americans would take on more debt as unemployed workers run short on cash and resort to using credit cards for necessities. That hasn’t happened. As Karen Ho shows with data and charts, Americans are paying off their credit cards and taking on huge amounts of housing debt. But the most financially stable are reaping the benefits of low rates and cheap money, while even people with good credit scores are being left out. —David Yanofsky, Things editor
No ifs, ands, or belts. Covid-19 has impacted most areas of the economy, from the very large to the very small. And for every industry it benefits, such as the home exercise and bread-baking sectors, there are sectors that are suffering. As Marc Bain discovered, among the losers are makers of belts, an accessory falling out of favor in our new stretchy sweatpants reality. —Oliver Staley, culture and lifestyle editor
Tracking the vax. Nobody can make effective plans for economic recovery and a return to normality until we have safe, affordable vaccines that can be distributed easily. But before a country’s health department can get to work distributing them, they’ve got to have individual doses in hand. Katherine Foley charted the countries that have pre-ordered enough to cover their populations, and those that are going to have to catch up. —Hasit Shah, news editor
Disruption, disrupted. For the past few decades, the concept of “disruptive innovation” suggested that any large, seemingly dominant company could be felled by younger, nimbler competition. But since about the year 2000, the chance that any given large firm would actually be displaced has fallen. Walter Frick looks at how companies’ investment in custom software—think Amazon’s logistics operation—makes disruption tougher than it used to be. —Kira Bindrim, executive editor
“Silver lining” may not be the right phrase… But Sarah Todd learned with some amount of surprise that Quartz readers generally report feeling healthier now that they’re largely working from home. Less walking around the office has led to more time to… walk around (and do other kinds of exercise), and goals there never seemed to be enough time for now seem attainable. There are exceptions, of course, but many have used the pandemic to better themselves in ways they’re grateful to have had a chance to pursue. —Susan Howson, email editor
Fun fact about book covers
The original covers of Virginia Woolf’s books were designed by her sister, artist and fellow Bloomsbury Group member Vanessa Bell. The two had decided on the arrangement as children. We’ve got book covers covered in our latest Quartz Weekly Obsession.
One membership thing that made us think
Fast food Covid nation. A pandemic could not stop the world’s desire for fast food, but it did change how we satisfy that hunger. By poring through financial disclosures and earnings reports, Amanda Shendruk examines how quick-service restaurants are adjusting to the current environment. Through a gorgeous junk food-filled interactive, the article explains how drive-throughs, mobile payment, and touch-free delivery have saved fast food. It also points out one surprising winner from the pandemic: the chicken wing. —Dan Kopf, data editor
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Five things from elsewhere that made us smarter
Venture capitalists are warping the startup economy. Having just read Billion Dollar Loser, Reeve Wiedemann’s scrupulous postmortem of WeWork, I found this New Yorker story by Charles Duhigg to be the perfect companion piece. Duhigg focuses on the venture capitalist system that inflates the power of one bombastic startup at the expense of all its competitors. “In the traditional capitalist model, the most efficient and capable company succeeds,” Duhigg writes, “in the new model, the company with the most funding wins.” —Sarah Todd, Quartz at Work reporter
The making of a narco state. Last week, the US attorney general inexplicably dropped drug charges against former Mexican defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos, a case that promised to be the biggest blockbuster since the “El Chapo” trial. To understand why, take a look at the small state of Nayarit, a textbook example of how strongman populism, combined with poverty and a multibillion-dollar illicit business, could not only corrupt the country’s top drug enforcer, but hold sway over Mexico’s foreign relations, as Nathaniel Morris details in a piece for the Mexico Violence Resource Project. —Ana Campoy, deputy editor, global finance and economics
The long view. As farmers give up on marginal land and young people move to the cities, swaths of Europe are returning to the wild; an area the size of Italy may be abandoned by 2030. Wolves and other apex predators have returned, and they’re resetting the whole ecosystem. In the Guardian, Cal Flyn describes a cascade of consequences as hopeful for forests and humans as it is terrifying for sheep. —Katherine Bell, editor in chief
Lonely as a half carafe of wine. For many, lockdowns have exacerbated feelings of isolation. In this moving personal essay, the Financial Times’s Claire Bushey writes beautifully about living alone, and how one’s own choices and circumstances beyond one’s control can easily turn into heart-wrenching loneliness. Exploring feelings of shame alongside personal worth, Bushey notes: “When you’re lonely, lockdown doesn’t end.” —Amanda Shendruk, Things reporter
A promise kept. Usually, we don’t think of stories about end-of-life caregiving as being whirlwind romances, but Christopher Solomon writing for GQ managed to do just that. His parents’ relationship evolved slowly over decades as healthy relationships do, and much faster after his father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. It’s sad, of course, but it’s also full of love, and the kind of writing that makes you want to call those closest to you to tell them how much they mean to you, which is the net good we need these days. —Katherine Ellen Foley, health and science reporter
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, home fitness tips, and favorite book covers to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was brought to you by Susan Howson and Katherine Ellen Foley.