May 31 2020
Festina lente (in Latin) is Roman translation of Greek proverb - speûde bradéōs (σπεῦδε βραδέως). It is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" or “rush slowly”. It has been adopted as a motto numerous times, particularly by the emperors Augustus and Titus, and the Medicis but… it seems to be unknown to our “rulers”.
Instead, the POTUS announced “Operation Warp Speed” (OWS), the administration's national program to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics (medical countermeasures).
What is “warp speed”? Let’s investigate.
Cambridge Dictionary:
Warp speed, noun - an extremely high speed of change, development, or movement. It was popularized by the US television series Star Trek (originally referring to a faster-than-light speed attained by a spaceship traveling in a space warp).
How fast is warp? In the sci-fi universe of "Star Trek", spaceships with warp drives can zoom past the normally impenetrable limit of light speed, or about 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second) in a vacuum. Thus warp 9 corresponds to a speed of 900 billion kilometers per hour (= 250 million kilometers per second) or about 830 times the speed of light.
Is it possible to move faster than the speed of light? The answer is NO. At least, it is an axiom as of May 31st of 2020. The one who proves it is possible will prove Einstein wrong.
Let’s not stop here and look into meaning of “warp “. What is “warp”?
Cambridge Dictionary:
Warp, noun- the threads that go along the length of a piece of cloth or a loom (= a special frame for making cloth).
Warp, verb (STRANGE) - to make a person or their behavior strange, in an unpleasant or harmful way.
American Dictionary:
Warp, verb (BEND) - (of a surface or hard material) to bend or twist so that the surface is no longer flat or straight.
Warp, verb (MAKE WRONG) - to cause something or someone to no longer do what is usual or right.
Therefore, the idea of moving on a “warp speed” is based on ability to bend the space. For instance, take a sheet of paper and bend it in half: now the two opposite edges meet. While it is possible with paper, bending space is a science fiction, at least as of today.
Let’s go back to OWS.
On May 26th, a day after my post titled Vaccine Thinking, Journal of American Medical Association published Adverse Consequences of Rushing a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Implications for Public Trust echoing my concerns regarding dangers of “cutting corners” while developing and implementing vaccines. The authors, all from NYU Langone Health, advocate for compliance with existing safeguards regulating vaccine development.
Authors express hope that OWS will not result in warping (e.g. bending) the rules and producing vaccine with unproven safety and efficacy. They state that “what cannot and must not be allowed is for desperation to result in the suspension of scientific principles and ethical research values. Physicians should not administer inadequately vetted vaccines; researchers should not endorse them without sufficient data.”
The bottom line: the POTUS got a bad advice, again, or - worse, consciously launched “mission impossible” at the expense of taxpayers as a part of his reelection campaign. After all, one of the previous POTUSes announcement “mission accomplished” helped him to retain the job… at the expense of loosing over 7,000 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Festina lente…