By John Stone This letter is republished from January 2019. When I wrote to Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer to the British Government, the headline rate for Northern Ireland schools (2018 figure) was 2.9%. The figure for 2022 was 4.7%,.
We are a petri dish : world watches UK s race between vaccine and virus | Coronavirus theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Work continues to develop Covid-19 vaccines effective against new coronavirus variants.
And some researchers are eyeing an even more ambitious goal: to create broad-spectrum vaccines protective against new types of virus - even before they emerge.
Researchers have warned, however, that there are significant technical hurdles to overcome before such “pan-virus” or “pan-coronavirus” vaccines could be released.
Here s what we know so far:
Why do we need a better vaccine?
Events in recent decades – and not just the latest pandemic – have highlighted the possible need for such widely applicable jabs.
In 2002, a novel coronavirus sparked the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) epidemic, while the coronavirus responsible for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) was first identified in 2012.
First published on Wed 23 Dec 2020 09.02 EST
A senior scientific adviser has said more data is needed before the government can adopt a proposal to give as many people as possible a single dose of a Covid vaccine rather than preserving stocks so there is enough for a second jab.
The former prime minister Tony Blair and Prof David Salisbury, a former director of immunisation at the Department of Health, backed the idea on Wednesday, saying second shots should be given only when more stock is available.
While the suggestion would mean each vulnerable person who has received the vaccine would be afforded less protection, the number of people given at least some protection would double.