Ayn Rand once famously wrote about women saying, “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” Rand may well have written these words for this pandemic. That too in a very unusual but critical vertical: C-19 vaccine research.
A number of studies in the mid-2000s revealed that almost 82% of clinical trial principal investigators in the US were men; while the coordinators, who do the really hard day-to-day slog to generate much of the knowledge and insights, were women! The situation is very different in the present scenario as there is at least one woman in a leading role for all the frontrunner Covid vaccines, the vaccine race seems to be largely driven by a powerhouse of women in their 50-60s. The woman most prominent and celebrated in her country: Major General Chen Wei, from the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences, was awarded the People’s Hero title for her leadership roles in phase 3 trial in the development of Sinopharma and CanS
Despite the impact of Covid-19 and the challenges it has brought this year, many women in China have stood out for their achievements. Here are nine to celebrate.