After a very mild start to the winter, the staff here at the NIAMRRE Operations Center have been experiencing extreme winter weather: nearly two feet of snow in the past 10 days, blizzard conditions, and extreme windchills due to actual air temperatures falling to -20◦ F. As the snow piles up, so do stories of kindness and commitment—neighbors digging out neighbors, rescued animals, the doctor who braved the brutal conditions on his ATV to reach the rural hospital where he works in time to help deliver a patient’s baby. But just like our paths to our garages, barns and sidewalks are narrowing due to ever-growing piles of snow, so too will our options for treatment of bacterial infections narrow without to commitment of our NIAMRRE members and others around the world to addressing the challenges presented by AMR. And as anyone who has worked in a lab understands—as do snowplow drivers and anybody who has tried to keep their driveway clear in a blizzard—progress can be slow and incremental; experiments will need to be repeated, the road will drift back in.
Next week, our weather looks to moderate, and we may see some sun. The days are growing longer and brighter, our sense of optimism returning as our fingers and toes thaw and we can remove one of our layers of clothing. There’s reason for optimism too for AMR; artificial intelligence has been used to discover a new class of antibiotics, potential new drug targets are being uncovered, new strategies for infection prevention and treatment, new diagnostics, and other innovations are being developed by researchers who are undaunted by headwinds and “whiteout” conditions that can sometimes obscure the path forward—folks for whom “there is no bad weather, only bad clothing.”
With winter weather blasting much of the country, we hope you all stay safe and warm. And thanks for all you do to provide solutions to the global challenge of AMR.