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Heather du Plessis-Allan: Pfizer vaccine announcement is rare good news

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Tue, 10 Nov 2020, 4:11PM

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Pfizer vaccine announcement is rare good news

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Tue, 10 Nov 2020, 4:11PM

The Pfizer vaccine news out today has got to be some of the best news we’ve had all year.  This could potentially have huge implications for countries like ours that’ve essentially pinned all our hopes on a vaccine to allow us to reopen our borders. 

The best news about this is vaccine is that it might be 90% effective – which means that it works for 90% of people who get the jab.  That is so much higher than anyone was really hoping for.  Publically, we were being warned to brace for less than 50% efficacy.  50% is what the flu vaccine manages on average, and you can understand the pessimism amongst professionals given how fast this one has been developed. 

The other good news is how many doses Pfizer thinks it might be able to produce within a relatively short period. 

There’ll be 50 million doses by year’s end.  Up to 1.3 billion doses next year.  Given that every person has to get two doses, that’ll cover 650 million people, which is just under  nine percent of the world.  Which yes, isn’t a huge number, but given how fast this is happening and the fact that other vaccines might also be ready by then, it’s reason to be pretty hopeful.  

But, goes without saying, these are really early days.  The trial hasn’t even finished yet.  And there is plenty we don’t know, which could yet bring a bit of disappointment. 

We don’t know how long immunity lasts.  Some are saying it could be as little as a couple of months.  If that’s the case, it means regular re-jabbing, which of course means we’ll need so many more doses before we can open our borders. 

We don’t know this jab stops vaccinated people from spreading the virus.  We don’t know if it protects the elderly as well as the young.  And we don’t know the details of the infections people got despite getting the jab. 

Also, as I’ve said, it is still early days.  The FDA in the States has told Pfizer it must still track half of the participants for side effects for at least two months which is the time at which problems generally crop up.  Pfizer will complete that period later this month. 

And the final problem is demand. The UK alone has bought 40 million doses which is most of the 50 million that will be available this year.  That doesn’t mean the UK gets the first lot, in fact we don’t know how it’ll be distributed, but it simply means there is more demand than there is supply.  

So we’re still in for a long haul. But, this is good news.  And since covid hit, there hasn’t been enough good news. 

 

 

 

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