It seems that some of you are reading my blog and choosing books.

So, recently, I have been a little nervous about writing book reviews.

Aside from that.

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Today, I would like to recommend "Resurrection Day," another blockbuster science fiction novel by the late Sakyo Komatsu.

(I've repeated this story before, but I'll do it again.)

This is the basic form of my view of the world in which the new coronavirus vaccine could not be developed.

COVID-19 (unlike MM-88) does not have a 100% fatality rate, nor is it airborne (it is highly contagious, but only by contact/droplet transmission).

However, I believe that the "final form of medical collapse" is the same as the one depicted in this novel and movie -- or rather, medical collapse is ongoing.

"A patient was unable to be admitted to the hospital due to full occupancy, was forced to return home, and died after receiving treatment at home".

If we don't call this situation "medical collapse," what do we call it?

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I can't tell you how many times I've seen this movie, but this time it was on Amazon Prime, so I was doing data calculations while the movie was playing (data calculations don't require my "brain").

And I noticed it for the first time during this viewing.

"The English pronunciations of the Japanese actors is 'excellent'"

It's not so-called "katakana English pronunciation", but it's not "native pronunciation" either.

It's hard to put into words, but it's the kind of pronunciation that makes me think, "If a Japanese person were working in a foreign country, this is the kind of English they would speak".

The actors probably practiced their lines over and over again.

It was amazing, and I was deeply impressed.

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Now, again, I'm stuck with the "Which comes first, the novel or the movie?

My recommendation is basically 'novel first', but it comes with the annoying problem of 'getting angry after watching the movie' if you like the novel.

In addition, Sakyo Komatsu's novels can be a bit "tough" if you don't have a certain level of advanced knowledge (in the case of "Resurrection Day", knowledge about viruses and vaccines).

Still, I think that even Sakyo Komatsu could not have come up with the idea of "designing vaccines by computer" in 1964.

Well, at that time, "computer" was synonymous with "magic box," and it was terribly expensive.

For example, at the time, a mere calculator (computer) weighed 13 kg and cost 360,000 yen (49.7 million yen at today's prices, based on the starting university salary of 17,000 yen (1964)/235,000 yen (2020)).

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The "mRNA vaccine" for new coronaviruses is the first human vaccine (for full-scale use in humans) created using the latest vaccine technology and computerized digital technology.

"To be honest, I was so surprised to learn about the manufacturing process of the mRNA vaccine that I was even shaken out of my skin as an IT engineer."

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However, as I wrote here, 'there is a hell of a lot of steady empirical experiments hidden to fill in the gaps between theory and practice'.

After all, vaccine production is not something that can be done by a computer.

It is inevitable that there will be a huge process of empirical/clinical testing to verify the safety of the product.

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I won't write about it because it would be a spoiler, but the one thing in "Resurrection Day" that completely eliminates MM-88, a virus with a 100% fatality rate, is a surprising object.

Well... Yeah, I would still recommend "Novel First".