COVID-19 Vaccines

As you'll no doubt know, 2020 ended seeing the successful and record-setting development of a range of vaccines for COVID-19 from various companies.

New Zealand is in the privileged position of having zero cases of COVID in the community. We can afford to take our time with the vaccine, which must go through local approval processes (Medsafe), unlike other countries where the transmission is rampant, and vaccines have been authorised for emergency use.

The current predictions are that vaccines will be available in New Zealand sometime this year. We're also doing the right thing by our Pacific neighbours and helping them out. More information can be found on the NZ COVID-19 website.

Unfortunately, it seems that many people in the US are falling prey to vaccine hesitancy.

This is unfortunate, though perhaps predictable. I believe that it's not unreasonable for people to have concerns about the vaccines, particularly with the speed at which they've been developed. But, as always, the key to alleviating concerns is a deeper understanding of the science behind their development. The key takeaway is that the speed of development is mainly down to bureaucratic hurdles being removed, modern technology, and the moon-shot-like efforts that scientists put in.

Image from Tim Mossholder/Unsplash