Variants, Vaccines, and the Future of “Pandemic Tech”

One year ago, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic and the US declared a national emergency. In a year, we used technology to sequence the virus, develop tests, and create vaccines and treatments in record time and scale. However, the virus has also evolved — we’re not out of the woods yet.

In this presentation, UT Austin professors Ilya Finkelstein and colleagues will share exactly where the pandemic is in terms of vaccine and therapeutics, how science and technology have helped create the treatments rapidly (and their role in it!), how to understand effectiveness and risks, what virus variants we are seeing now, and what the next steps are in using data, science, and technology in identifying and addressing SARS-CoV-2 variants and future pandemics.

SARS-CoV-2 == virus
COVID-19 == disease caused by the virus