Covid and vaccination
The problem of vaccination against Covid-19 raises many questions: which vaccine, in how much time, for whom? Here is a brief overview of the situation.
Covid-19 has already caused more than 1.76 million deaths worldwide since its spread outside China (on the 28th of December accordering to AFP). While the battle horse of the first wave was the access to masks, the one of the second wave is the access to a vaccine. Moreover, the measures put in place to restrict this spread are very costly from an economic point of view, which is why many companies are trying to develop a vaccine against Covid-19. Some vaccines are already well advanced, and some are beginning to be used on a large scale.
The United Kingdom is the first European country to start vaccinating its population. The vaccine used is the one developped by Pfizer-BioNTech and its vaccination campaign has already started. This vaccine must be inoculated in two doses with a twenty-one-day interval between the two. It must however be stored at a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius, which is lower than that normally used for vaccines and therefore requires special containers. It is first administered to the elderly (over 80 years old) as well as employees of retirement homes and of the public health system. This is before the vaccine can be made available to a larger part of the population. Despite the new Covid-19 variant detected in the UK, experts seem to be confident about the effectiveness of the vaccines. As a reminder, the UK has recorded almost 65,000 deaths due to the Covid-19, making it the second most affected country in Europe after Italy. The European Union is urging member states to start vaccinating all together and as soon as possible; the date announced is the 27th of December. Some countries such as Germany, Hungary and Slovakia have already started to vaccine on the 26th of December despite an anti-vaccination movement growing in the Balkans. Uncertainties in the region, such as war and political problems, are partly responsible for the great wave of lack of confidence in the government and the growing popularity of certain conspiracy theories. Social networks and the media in these countries are partly responsible for the spread of the idea that the virus was created in a laboratory in China and spread through big pharma.
The same vaccine is also used in the United States, the country most affected by the Covid-19 with more than 300,000 deaths. Joe Biden, the president elect, as well as former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have all said that they are ready to be publicly vaccinated (Reference [2]). Joe Biden was vaccinated on the 21th of December in front of cameras. In addition, the government is expected to authorize and launch the vaccination campaign for a second vaccine, the Moderna vaccine, which is not yet in use around the world.
Brazil, for its part, wants to vaccinate 70% of its population in 16 months, which corresponds to 150 million people.
As for China, where the virus originated, five vaccines are in the final stages of development but none of them have yet been officially authorized. Despite this, at least one million people have already been vaccinated, with government employees, international students and people at risk being given priority for a dose of the vaccine.
Despite these efforts, not all countries are equalg, with the richest countries monopolizing most of the vaccine doses. According to some researchers, more than one fifth of the world’s population would have to wait until at least 2022 to get a vaccine.
References:
[1] AFP
[2] France info, https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/vaccin/etats-unis-joe-biden-pret-a-se-faire-vacciner-en-public-contre-le-covid-19_4221557.html
[3] All images are from: https://pixabay.com
