It’s hard to be optimistic in these dark days (I don’t just mean metaphorically: I live in Scotland, where the sun doesn’t so much rise at this time of year as send a few expletives into the sky before going back to bed). And it’s harder still with more serious COVID restrictions about to come into force: from Friday, Glasgow will effectively be in lockdown apart from supermarkets and schools. So here’s a reason to be cautiously cheerful: the end of the pandemic is now in sight.

The piece, by Sarah Zhang for The Atlantic, is a fascinating explanation of what the new vaccines are, why they’re revolutionary and most of all, why they’re probably going to work. And if they don’t, why we probably won’t be vaccine-less for long.

The vaccine by itself cannot slow the dangerous trajectory of COVID-19 hospitalizations this fall or save the many people who may die by Christmas. But it can give us hope that the pandemic will end. Every infection we prevent now—through masking and social distancing—is an infection that can, eventually, be prevented forever through vaccines.