As everyone reading this knows, the Covid-19 pandemic is raging around the world, with South Africa in the grip of a second wave worse than the first. At least 32,000 people in SA have died directly from Covid-19, and we have had over 71,000 “excess deaths” that can be attributed to the pandemic.
Vaccines save lives. They are one of the most successful public health interventions ever – the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that immunisation saves over two million lives every year (four per minute).
New vaccines for Covid-19 have been developed very quickly (in under a year – faster than the four years of development for the mumps vaccine, the previous recordholder).