Off-at-a-Tangent: WEEK 40b OF CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN

It's been called V Day because the vaccination programme in Scotland (and the UK) has now started. Supplies of the Pfzier vaccine are now being rolled out for front line health care workers and care homes. Other vaccines will be coming as the whole population of the UK will be offered it over the coming months. Preparation of sites, storage facilities, etc were looked at very early on so that when the drug became available for the mass vaccination involved they were able to pull things together quickly.

We are so grateful to the scientists, and regulators worked tirelessly to bring out this about. We all feel we are now turning a corner!

The big breakthrough came when Pfizer/BioNTech published its first results in November.

They showed the vaccine is up to 95% effective
The UK is due to get 40 million doses
It is given in two doses, three weeks apart

BioNTech’s chief executive, "billionaire scientist" Uğur Şahin - "The Man Behind the Vaccine" as stated by Guardian Newspaper, November 12, 2020

BioNTech, a company founded in 2008 by the German scientists and married couple Şahin and Özlem Türeci, as well as the Austrian oncologist Christoph Huber, developed its experimental vaccine with a method that uses mRNA.

I, for one, will certainly be at the head of the queue when it is offered to my age group (Spare a thought for the children: they have had to be assured that Santa would definitely be the first!)

As a 76 year old I can remember another vaccine being rolled out in the mid 50s (in Canada). I clearly recall, as a school child, this particular photograph and its significance. This was the man, Dr Salk, who developed the polio vaccine and was making the point about its safety by vaccinating his own children.

This is the story:

Dr. Jonas Salk first began testing his potential polio vaccine in 1953, he brought it home from his nearby lab at the University of Pittsburgh. "I just hated injections," recalled his son Peter Salk, 76, and the oldest of three brothers. "So my father came home with polio vaccine and some syringes and needles that he sterilized on the kitchen stove, boiling them in water, and lined us kids up and then administered the vaccine."

1955 photo caption: Dr. Jonas E. Salk, who discovered the polio vaccine, reads with his wife and three boys in Ann Arbor, Mich., on April 11, 1955. The boys were among the first vaccinated during testing. The family was photographed the night before an announcement the vaccine was effective. Pictured from left are Jonathan, 5; Donna Salk; Peter, 11; Salk; and Darrell, 8.

It marked the beginning of the end of polio. But it was a protracted process... Finally, on April 12, 1955, nearly two years after the Salk boys had received their shots, the vaccine was declared "safe, effective and potent."

* * * * * * * * * * NEWSPAPERS THEN AND NOW * * * * * * * * * * * * *