WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT...
When the enormity of the pandemic became clear in March, few would have dared hope that three vaccines would have proved effective in clinical trials by now and that one would be approved for UK use by early December. Vaccines usually take years to develop and indeed, on the basis of talks with experts, I wrote a Prospect essay (“Shot of Hope,” April 2020) suggesting that 18 months was the likely minimum.
Yet after less than half that time, here we are. A trio of Covid-19 vaccines has now been developed by Pfizer (and BioNTech), Moderna, and AstraZeneca (with Oxford researchers). There have also been reports of vaccines ready for rollout in Russia a nd China, although less is known about their trials.