Some thoughts from planet science at this point in the pandemic. The first thing to note is that science is the exit strategy ( @JeremyFarrar's great pithy phrase) - clinical science supported by fundamental understanding of cell and molecular biology.

Science provides the understanding of the virus spread (the PCR tests - antigen in older epi terms and the antibody tests), the potential anti-viral therapies, potential anti-inflammatory therapies, comorbidities and genetics, and vaccines to bolster our immune system.

It is virus vs humans in this all too lethal game. National boundaries mean nothing to the virus and thankfully mean little to science. So whereas there is seemingly a retreat to nationalism+comparisons between countries in our politics, science thankfully is just doubling down

That getting down means reorienting research to this specific virus biology and the disease it causes in humans. There are many layers to this research.

One sounds mundane but is not - can we understand the clinical pathways better of patients? Many many things are measured in a hospital setting and in particular the ICU. From these measurements, can we glean understanding of the disease, or other disease combinations?

Everything we learn here has the potential to improve clinical practice - process optimisation in the hideously complex world of clinical practice, so one can treat patients better, and as important, use resources better.

In terms of interventions there are already good global, EU and many country level (eg, UK) clinical trials being set up.

A diversion on clinical trials. Some people who aren't used to the trial mentality might feel that randomising test treatments, often with a standard of care possible randomisation feels cruel. Surely one should try hard to treat everyone "as best one can".

Here one needs humility. The point of a clinical trial is first acknowledging that we simply don't know what is "as best one can". Decades upon decades of experience is that without robust randomisation it is all too easy to fool yourself

The trials are the modern "adaptive" trials, where treatments arms can be closed down because they prove to work or prove not to work (via pre-existing criteria - critical to set this out beforehand), and allow opening new "arms" - ie, trialling new treatments.

Think of these almost as semi-sentient creations of the clinical trialists, testing whether something works, discarding a treatment when it doesn't and promoting a treatment when it does, with cold hearted rigour and precision.

These trials are already running now with a number of feasible candidates; everytime we can find something to change the biology of the virus or the infection we can test it.

This leads to the next layer of science - working out how the virus works and - as important - how the disease progresses in terms of the fundamental biology in humans.

This is complex and the kitchen sink is rightly being thrown at this problem. Every omics one can think of is being activated; most experimental designs I've seen focusing on mild vs severe cases. In the case of "straight" genetics, also "confirmed cases vs controls"

As ever, international collaboration abounds here, and the many studies exploring this are each a bet on gaining some understanding. What could that understanding give us? We just don't know - one possibility is suggesting different existing drugs to trial.

Some of the understanding will be less about the virus and more about unhealthy human host responses to the virus - often one is aiming to calm down the immune system rather than amp it up in severe disease.

And then we go one layer deeper to the molecular and structural biology of the virus - to know precisely how the virus binds to the human receptor to gain entry, and how antibodies from the human sense the virus (already done some of this).

Again, what could this tell us? It can inform which parts of the virus might mutate to change itself from immune surveillance. If we're lucky it might give us hints on how to interfere with the viral recognition.

And then there are creative science ideas on the virus and host biology I haven't dreamt of - but someone else has and is giving a go.

I am almost certain that one of these bits of science will give us more understanding and thus more tools to fight the virus; each tool will improve how we structure our societies to live with the virus around us; each step will bring us closer to a more normal life.

Again, to stress, the unit doing this research are humans and they are doing it for (all) humans.