76 years ago today, 150,000 brave men waded ashore to liberate Europe from the Nazi jackboot. 4,414 of them died.
Today, 4901 people died of Covid-19.
Here's the good news.
There are now ten different vaccines in human trials. Surely at least one of them will work?
The Oxford University vaccine (it has a name AZD1222, but it isn't the sort of name that stands out) is currently being tested in Brasil. Why Brasil? Because to test a vaccine, you need lots of people to volunteer, and a high likelihood that they'll be exposed to the virus, and that makes Brasil ideal. If the tests are good, then Astrazeneca say that they'll be able to make two billion doses. We'll want 60 million, the USA has pre-purchased 400 million, and I hope that the rest go to where they are most needed.
The ModeRNA vaccine is in human trials, and will be going to phase 3 trials if all goes well, in July.
USA unemployment fell from 14.7% to 13.3% so there's only 21 million unemployed now. America is starting to get back to work.
The Health Ministry in Egypt has distributed a million doses of vitamin D to health workers. They've spent most of the last two months indoors, and are probably very D-deficient right now. D is a vital ingredient in the immune system. I think more people should take this seriously. It's cheal, readily available, and if you hae a dark skin, it's slower at making D than light skins. This might be part of the reason why dark-skinned people have worse outcomes if they get infected. Or it might not, but evidence says that it is.
Fun fact. Each time you breath out, if you're infected, you emit ten million virus particles into the air around you.
The Oxford University vaccine (it has a name AZD1222, but it isn't the sort of name that stands out) is currently being tested in Brasil. Why Brasil? Because to test a vaccine, you need lots of people to volunteer, and a high likelihood that they'll be exposed to the virus, and that makes Brasil ideal. If the tests are good, then Astrazeneca say that they'll be able to make two billion doses. We'll want 60 million, the USA has pre-purchased 400 million, and I hope that the rest go to where they are most needed.
The ModeRNA vaccine is in human trials, and will be going to phase 3 trials if all goes well, in July.
USA unemployment fell from 14.7% to 13.3% so there's only 21 million unemployed now. America is starting to get back to work.
The Health Ministry in Egypt has distributed a million doses of vitamin D to health workers. They've spent most of the last two months indoors, and are probably very D-deficient right now. D is a vital ingredient in the immune system. I think more people should take this seriously. It's cheal, readily available, and if you hae a dark skin, it's slower at making D than light skins. This might be part of the reason why dark-skinned people have worse outcomes if they get infected. Or it might not, but evidence says that it is.
Fun fact. Each time you breath out, if you're infected, you emit ten million virus particles into the air around you.
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