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The debate that has been going on for some 20 years about the degree of technological innovation in our economic system<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> can already be decided in the field of biotechnology. The breakthrough technological innovations are there<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and are evolving rapidly. The current COVID-19 pandemic confirms this point: things would not have happened in the same way if the epidemic had occurred twenty years ago. Current events also reveal the proactive players in the new biotechnology agenda. For them, and unlike the rest of us who did not see it coming, what is happening was predictable and expected. But what must be understood is that new biotechnologies will impact, and have already begun to impact, on areas far removed from health.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is a natural reflex to assimilate the new with the old. Even now, some people still question the real novelty of the virus and consider that it should be judged on the basis of excess mortality statistics<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Personalities such as Didier Raoult defended in February the idea that this epidemic was not statistically discernible among the mass of diseases caused by influenza and coronavirus type viruses. If the prophylactic efficacy of a hydrochloroquine treatment were to be proven, it might give some plausibility to the idea that this virus is not a real novelty.<\/p>\n What can be said now is that without the biotechnological advances of the last twenty years, particularly in real-time PCR methods, the course of the COVID-19 epidemic would have been quite different: no rapid sequencing of the cov-2 SARS genome, no diagnostic test or screening on a large scale<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> as in South Korea or Iceland, but also on a small scale in Telluride, or in Marseilles. New biotechnologies are also being mobilised to develop more specific and more efficient tests and to find a vaccine<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Everyone is immediately affected by the current pandemic, but not everyone is facing this situation with the same degree of preparedness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most major Western countries are responding to the pandemic more or less as if it could not be anticipated. However, the performance of the East Asian countries eventually proved the criticisms made by Nassim Nicholas Taleb about the public policies adopted in many Western countries to be justified in a way that is difficult to dispute.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The level of anticipation is significantly higher in East Asia, particularly in South Korea, a country comparable in size to the major European or American states. We are talking about this here<\/a>. These countries are comparatively the best organized to deal with the risk of a pandemic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is at least one Western public figure who seems to have anticipated and actively prepared for the occurrence of a pandemic: Bill Gates<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n1. COVID-19 reveals the impact of disruptive biotechnologies<\/h2>\n
2. The obvious proactive players in the new biotechnology agenda<\/h2>\n
2.1. Those who react late<\/h3>\n
2.2. Anticipators<\/h3>\n
2.3. Proactive<\/h3>\n