The Future of Medicine

Vaccine injected into virus (photo by Ivan Diaz)

The COVID-19 pandemic made its way into the American culture within the last year, and vaccines are already making their way around. December 2020, the first few people got vaccinated. By May this year, the vaccine will be available to everyone who is at least sixteen years old. With this coming out so quickly, it opens up possibilities for more medical advances.

For example, the common cold, a coronavirus similar to the one creating today's pandemic, may one day (hopefully sometime soon) have a vaccine that is normal for all people to get as infants or young children.

Disease in general is definitely going down and this trend will continue. With less people getting sick, people will be both physically and mentally healthier. Less people die and the human population on Earth increases. The many people crowding the Earth will take up food, water, and space. They will also pollute it because of all of the products they must consume. How will we manage to fit all of the people on our limited space? How will we be able to sustain the reasources to maintain the growing population? With these great medical advances and larger lifespans, questions like these arise. What direction will our society move toward?

-Written March 2, 2021