President Trump has been criticized for receiving experimental Covid-19 treatments that aren’t available to ordinary Americans. But man-made antibodies like those Mr. Trump received may soon be rolled out for broader public use. Such treatments may be a bridge to a vaccine.

Covid vaccines are being developed at a brisk pace, but their widespread use is on track for next year. Even if the Food and Drug Administration authorizes a vaccine this winter for those at high risk of Covid complications, the immunity benefit to the population will come gradually as access is expanded and more Americans are vaccinated.

One goal has been to have drugs like antibody treatments available this fall. Instead of using a vaccine to spur our bodies to produce antibodies, these drugs deliver synthetic versions that aim to neutralize the virus before complications develop. Mr. Trump probably benefited from the antibody cocktail he received, developed by Regeneron. These drugs could also rescue patients when vaccination doesn’t work or treat those who get sick after declining to be vaccinated. Regeneron and Eli Lilly have submitted data from clinical trials as a basis for emergency use authorization. Amgen and Vir Biotechnology also have such drugs in advanced development.

Eli Lilly’s submission was based on trial results reported earlier this week showing that its antibody treatment reduces hospitalizations and serious complications. The antibodies appear to be most helpful to those at highest risk. Earlier data showed that the antibodies bring down virus levels in infected patients with no obvious safety risks.

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.@ScottGottliebMD & Mark McClellan: “Man-made antibodies like those Mr. Trump received may soon be rolled out for broader public use. Such treatments may be a bridge to a vaccine.” https://t.co/I9Mz6g0hq6

— Michael R. Strain (@MichaelRStrain) October 8, 2020

Conventional wisdom has it that science and religion have perennially been at war. This “conflict thesis,” as historians call it, can be traced to the late nineteenth century and to two influential books in particular: John ­William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, published in 1874, and Andrew Dickson White’s two-volume History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, published in 1896.

Draper stated the thesis this way:

The history of Science . . . is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.

What Draper meant by “traditionary faith” was Catholicism, a religion he detested. The eminent historian of ­science Lawrence Principe has characterized Draper’s book as “little more than a thinly disguised anti-Catholic rant.” For Andrew Dickson White, by contrast, the problem lay not with any particular religion, or with religion in general, but with “dogmatic theology.” “The theological method,” as he saw it, “consists largely in accepting tradition and in spinning arguments to fit it.” The history of science is “full of ­interferences” by theologians fearful of new ideas:

Religious men started, centuries ago, with the idea that purely scientific investigation is unsafe; that theology must intervene. So began this great modern war.

Of course, Draper and White did not invent the notion that scientific ideas and theological ideas can sometimes be in tension, even to the point of conflict. This had been ­obvious since at least the time of Galileo. What they did invent was the notion that there had existed two distinct and warring camps, Science and Religion (or Science and Theology), and that history was replete with clashes between them. This notion is belied, of course, by the fact that the great majority of scientists well into the nineteenth century were themselves religious. Draper and White, in addition to inventing the conflict thesis, amassed much of the evidence that has since been cited to support it. This they did by variously misconstruing, taking out of context, garbling, embellishing, distorting, and in some cases simply fabricating historical facts and events.

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On the Origins of Specious Myths https://t.co/G5h1e23z9l

— Sergei Frolikov (@AsuraSerg) August 25, 2020

A new round of election stress disorder is spreading across the U.S., according to experts. They say the tension is even worse this time because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Stress levels have been sky-high for months now. We’ve been dealing with the coronavirus since March and tensions have escalated the last few weeks before the election.

Marsha Palanci says she’s been feeling election anxiety.

“I was keeping pretty zen about the whole situation, until I watched the debates, and then that went out the window and I have been incredibly stressed,” Palanci said.

“I’m getting a lot of emergency calls of resentment or anger,” therapist Dr. Steven Stosny said.

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Election stress disorder is spreading across the U.S. as a therapist warns the anxiety is worse than 2016. @StahlCBS3 has the details. https://t.co/GTgYwIasiy

— CBS Philly (@CBSPhilly) October 7, 2020

Excessive social media use during the pandemic is a predictor of symptoms of depression and secondary trauma, suggests a new study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Jinan University in Guangzhou, China.

The study, published last month in Computers in Human Behavior, surveyed 320 participants living in Wuhan about how they accessed and shared health information with friends, family members, and colleagues over WeChat, China’s most popular social media app. They also used a stress scale to measure anxiety and depression by asking participants to rate statements such as “I felt that life was meaningless” and “I had disturbing dreams about the coronavirus epidemic.”

Bu Zhong, a journalism professor at Penn State and a coauthor of the study, said that the team began looking into the effects of social media use on people’s mental health right after Wuhan was locked down to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.

“We didn’t expect that this would become a global pandemic,” he said. “We were just thinking that we could reveal some invisible harms caused by the outbreak. In China’s situation, local media was not reporting on COVID-19. If you just read the local newspaper and watched television, you didn’t get information about the virus. This made people extremely stressed, and they began relying overwhelmingly on social media.”

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Excessive social media use linked to depression during pandemic https://t.co/2ZxbhKzz8a

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (@PittsburghPG) October 7, 2020

When Tammy Gimbel called to check on her 86-year-old father two weeks ago, he sounded weak. He was rushed to Sanford Medical Center in North Dakota’s capital, where doctors said he had the coronavirus. But all the hospital beds in Bismarck were full, his relatives were told, and the only options were to send him to a hospital hours away in Fargo, or to release him to be monitored by his daughter, who was herself sick with the virus.

Ms. Gimbel and her father hunkered down in a 40-foot camping trailer in her backyard to try to recover. He only got worse.

“There I sat in my camper, watching my dad shake profusely, have a 102 temperature with an oxygen level of 86,” Ms. Gimbel recalled. “I am sicker than I had been the whole time, and I wanted to cry. What was I going to do? Was I going to watch my dad die?”

As President Trump returned from the hospital, still telling Americans not to be afraid of Covid-19, the coronavirus has exploded in North Dakota. In the past week, North Dakota reported more new cases per capita than any other state. Hospitalizations for the virus have risen abruptly, forcing health care officials in some towns to send people to faraway hospitals, even across state lines to Montana and South Dakota.

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When Tammy Gimbel’s father was taken to a South Dakota hospital two weeks ago, he was told all the hospitals in town were full. He and Ms. Gimbel, who both had the coronavirus, hunkered down in her trailer to try to recover. He only got worse. https://t.co/ULibwkDubn

— NYT Science (@NYTScience) October 8, 2020

O merciful Jesus, Who when Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb; vouchsafe evermore to dwell in the hearts of us Thy servants; inspire us with Thy purity; strengthen us with Thy might; make us perfect in Thy ways; guide us into Thy truth; and unite us to Thyself and to Thy whole Church by Thy holy mysteries; that we may conquer every adverse power, and be wholly devoted to Thy service and conformed to Thy will; to the glory of God the Father.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Sunrise hike // Grand Tetons, Wyoming pic.twitter.com/jqaUofjnuM

— nicholas sampson (@nicholasampson) October 6, 2020

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131

“To hope is not only to believe in God, but to believe and be certain that He loves us and means well to us; and therefore is a great Christian grace.” pic.twitter.com/ZQowBve6gg

— FrDavid AbernethyCO (@pghoratory) October 9, 2019