Opinion | Covid Showed Us That the Truth Is a Matter of Life or Death

I am a physician and a scientist.Over 12 years, I had the privilege of serving Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden as the director of the National Institutes of Health.

Before that, I led the U.S.component of the Human Genome Project.I am amazed by the medical progress that has been possible in the past few decades, both in alleviating suffering and saving lives.

But I am also deeply troubled by the growing distrust of science in our society, just at the time when its insights are most needed.No recent experience highlights that disconnect more starkly than the last five years of the Covid pandemic.

From my vantage point on the front lines of that battle against a dangerous virus, let me highlight both the triumphs and tragedies, and propose some actions that we can all take to re-anchor our troubled society to truth, science, faith and trust — and put us back on an individual and collective journey that might be called the road to wisdom.Go with me back to early 2020, as the worst pandemic in more than a century was spreading across the globe, and deaths in the United States were in the thousands every day.For me and hundreds of scientists who joined together during Operation Warp Speed, the most hopeful strategy was to develop a vaccine.

We all worked to be sure the large-scale trials were scrupulously conducted, and that they involved a wide range of men and women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.What would success look like? The Food and Drug Administration had set the threshold for approval of this effort at 50 percent efficacy, about what the flu vaccine achieves most years.My colleague Tony Fauci and I frequently discussed our hopes for the outcome.

Maybe it could be possible to reach 70 percent? I confess that I was fearful of failure.I also prayed a lot.The results were revealed in late November 2020.

For both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines, there was 90 to 95 percent efficacy in preventing illness that cause...