Re: Wonderful News! (Vaccination trials successful)
Despite the wild optimism of some FMs here, many politicians and even some experts, I tend to agree with this lady:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54869918
Dr Sophie Harman, global health expert at Queen Mary University London, says today's news from Pfizer is "incredibly exciting" and could be a "major game-changer" in our response to Covid-19.
She adds: "However before we get too carried away we really have to be careful about safety and scale around the vaccine, so whilst we can go with confidence, I don’t think we can go back to normal by Christmas or the New Year as I am sure everyone would hope.
“The other thing we have to think about a little bit is also who gets the vaccine and who gets the vaccine first. We know there's a priority among front-line health workers which is quite right - but how does that actually become enacted in practice?
"I think we also need to think about how we build trust, both in the UK and round the world around vaccines. Before Covid-19 there was a growth of anti-vaccination, of anti-vaxxers, and we need to crush that quite quickly if people are going to see an uptake in the vaccine.*
"Finally, I would also say there's a sort of tendency that when we get excited about vaccines is
to think about vaccines as sort of silver bullet. And this cannot replace just the tried and tested methods of track and trace**, monitoring the outbreak, and changing our behaviour***.
"So it's extremely exciting, very hopeful, but let's not take our eye off the ball of the very basics of how we respond to health crises."
* AFAIK, for COVID-19, 70% of the population need to be vaccinated in short order so that so-called "herd immunity" is achieved. In the UK, that would be around 40,000,000 people.
** As we know, the record of the government's private sector T,T & T is appalling, despite having cost £12,000,000,000 - even "Incompetent" Harding admitted that the system was no "silver bullet".
** Again, as we know, many of the UK's population refuse to modify their behaviour and bend, or even break, the rules to suit themselves.
Other questions yet to be answered by ANY vaccine include how long does immunity last? does the vaccine work as well in high-risk elderly people?, does it stop you spreading the virus? or just from developing symptoms?