Covid vaccine? Sign me up.
November 15, 2020
It looks like Pfizer’s BNT162b2 and Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccines will receive approval for widescale deployment across the European Union and the United States before the end of this year. Both are built on cutting-edge RNA technology which has never been licensed for use in the treatment of an infectious disease.
AstraZeneca’s ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and Johnson & Johnson’s Ad26.COV2-S are designed to use existing adenovector vaccination technology and therefore should be easier to manufacture, store, and distribute when they are available. Their time to availability is the question right now. The British had hoped that AstraZeneca’s Oxford vaccine would be the first to market but that has not been the case. Either could still make it across the line before the year closes out.
Russia and China have put their resources behind Sputnik V and CoronaVac respectively but neither the European Union nor the United States has ordered any doses. Hungary has taken it upon itself to secure supplies of Sputnik V so the EU will have a test bed right on its doorstep. I would be surprised if either vendor received orders from the EU and the US regardless of how effective those vaccines are.
There are unknown risks with any new vaccine but, quite frankly, I will take any Covid vaccine that is widely available. I am convinced there are unknown risks over the long from contracting Covid. I do not believe this virus passes through your system and does not leave some form of long-term scarring that'll make itself felt years or decades later. I could be entirely wrong, but it will take study to reach a conclusion. We need that study to start now.
Any working vaccine is a milestone, but it means we have only reached the halfway point of the situation we find ourselves in. Even if vaccinated there is no guarantee you will not spread the virus to other people. After vaccination expect mask wearing and social distancing in public for a while to come yet as the world moves to the post Covid normal.
Photo by Vincent Ghilione on Unsplash