COVID-19

That is really good news.

The next big issue will be how to store the vaccine at -70C. There are around 100 organisations in the UK who have the liquid nitrogen storage refrigerators to do this in some hospitals, research centres, private labs etc which will be using these things for their own purposes. They certainly aren't available in the likes of GP surgeries, care homes, walk-in centres and smaller hospitals. And I doubt that Curry's will have them for sale!

This will become a major logistics programme. I suspect that the Govt will now have to review its priority list of who will be first to receive the vaccine and the timescale involved if the Oxford vaccine isn't available yet.

 

This is the initial vaccine hub list; I assume that they will have been checked to ensure they have the requisite storage facilities:

 

With all the excitement around the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, many people may have missed what I consider to be a much more significant announcement by Moderna, that is that their vaccine efficacy against severe COVID-19 was 100 per cent!!!!!

Just for clarity, their vaccine has a 94.1% efficacy against catching the virus and 100% efficacy against it being severe if you do catch it.

 

And here is the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's revised priority list:
1 - Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers
2 - All those 80 years of age and over & frontline health and social care workers
3 - All those 75 years of age and over
4 - All those 70 years of age and over & clinically extremely vulnerable individuals
5 - All those 65 years of age and over
6 - All individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality
7 - All those 60 years of age and over
8 - All those 55 years of age and over
9 - All those 50 years of age and over

Vaccinations to commence next week.

 

I imagine the anti-vaxxers will start to adopt a different position once cinemas, restaurants, football stadia and the like start to insist on some kind of Covid passport as a condition of entry. And watch Govie change his stance too!

 

What would you do if you needed a Covid passport to get into VP or your favourite restaurant or visit somebody in hospital?

 

That's how anti-viral vaccines work.The vaccine can't prevent the virus being passed on toyou from somebody else and getting into your body. The vaccines can however stop the virus from spreading into your organs by stimulating your immune system to recognise and then attack the virus and prevent you becoming ill from the virus. There's nothing unusual in that.

And yes, it's definitely a positive step for everybody.