Covid-19 vaccine brings hope for 2021

As we enter the month of December and approach the first anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic, the arrival of a Covid-19 vaccine with a success rate of nearly 95% has provided a spark of hope in an otherwise bleak year.

Having been authorised by UK regulators, the Government has pre-ordered enough doses for 18 million people and given the UK public a reason to look forward to a more positive 2021 with the prospect of immunisation.

As the first country in the world to have approved the vaccine, UK hospitals have started administering doses, with 90-year-old Margaret Keenan becoming the first person in the world to receive it.

Health care workers, care home staff and residents and people aged 80 and above are expected to be among the first to receive the vaccine.

Whilst this is good news, the UK’s Chief Medical Officers warn that the vaccine’s deployment will have a “marginal impact” on reducing cases in the coming months as increased mixing around the Christmas period will put additional pressure on hospitals.

Ellie Armstrong, a university student who has previously suffered with the virus, said that even though the vaccine may be slow to offer positive results it has given her something to look forward to in the new year.

“After hearing the news of the new vaccine, I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. It has given me hope for my final year and I’m feeling optimistic that my studies may have an element of normality returned to them,” she said.

Despite widespread enthusiasm for the newly developed vaccine, it has been met apprehensively in some quarters. Fears have been raised over the extraordinary speed with which the vaccine has been developed and tested by creators Pfizer and BioNTech.

Yet much of this scepticism is fuelled by misinformation through social media allowing unsupported claims surrounding the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness to spread and drive anxiety online.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth accused social media platforms of “exploiting people’s fears, their mistrust of institutions and governments and spreading poison and harm” as Labour called the Government to introduce emergency laws to “stamp out dangerous” anti-vaccine fake news from spreading.