battle against the microbes

Our history is a battle against the microbes: we lost terribly before we developed vaccines to protect ourselves 

 by Max Roser July 20, 2020

Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems. This blog post draws on data and research discussed in our entries on vaccination and the coronavirus pandemic.

 For most of our history we were losing terribly against the microbes. Only recently did we turn the battle in our favour. Vaccines were a major breakthrough, as the data shows. Now in the fight against the coronavirus too, our biggest hope is to find an effective vaccine.