For every reader who bothers to write to the author, there must be a hundred others. One reader, Paritosh, wrote to Fair Observer regarding one of my articles that invoked well-understood principles of neuroplasticity to explain how any learning system, child or artificial intelligence (AI) can be damaged by artificial inputs, like screens and online interruptions. For children to learn to trust their senses, they need instant interaction with the real world, just as authors need reader responses to correct their work. People form trust by interacting, not just by reading and listening. This is because we must learn to trust our senses before we can trust anything else.

Global events, such as announcements that an effective COVID-19 vaccine could be available before the year’s end or the outcome of the US election, have raised hopes that the schism between science and populist ideology may become a thing of the past. That, in our view, is somewhat naïve. Unless we engage in a conscious process to heal the rift, we fear the idea that there has been a return to rational thought is an illusion that may even result in a sharpening of the divide. In our view, social learning, which engages all parties as citizens working toward a common good, is the transformative process that is needed now.

On Monday, November 9, BioNTech, a biotech company owned by a Turkish-German couple, Dr. Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, together with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer shared some promising news in the wake of the intense race toward eradicating COVID-19. The preliminary but potentially conclusive results of the trial of the mRNA vaccine against the novel coronavirus have sparked flickers of hope around the world. If successful, this will be the world’s first-ever mRNA vaccine. Out of 11 vaccines currently in late-stage trials, only one other company, Moderna, is developing mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, announcing on November 16 that its vaccine also comes with a 94.5% efficacy rate.

Germany is a federation, and so are Belgium, Spain and Austria. Switzerland is a confederation — something of a federation plus. Federations consist of relatively autonomous entities, like states in the US, states and territories in Australia, provinces in Canada, Länder in Germany and Austria, cantons in Switzerland. Until recently, these institutional arrangements posed relatively few problems. With COVID-19, this has very much changed.