I hadn’t expected any Covid-19 vaccine to come on stream before the spring of 2021. Then, without warning, on 3 November UK general practice was told to begin immediate preparations to deliver a coronavirus immunisation campaign from early December. Something seismic must have been happening behind the scenes. Quite how seismic was revealed six days later, with the announcement from the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer that its partnership with the innovative German company BioNTech had produced a vaccine with a stunning 90 per cent efficacy at protecting against Covid-19.
I have been critical of many aspects of the UK government’s response to the pandemic, but its decision to hedge its bets with six different promising vaccines has proven wise. One of those six was the Pfizer/ BioNTech product. As a result, we are set to obtain sufficient quantities to begin immunising the 20 million most vulnerable people before the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval.
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