Is there finally a glimmer of light at the end of a very dark tunnel?

News filtered through this week that Pfizer and the German biotech company BioNTech have had brilliant results from their phase 3 trials of the vaccine and it proved to be 90% effective in terms of protection from the virus.

I was someone who welcomed the news with open arms. I’ve been shielding for 80% of this year and if this vaccine is the real shizzle, I’m going to be skipping to my GP surgery to get the vaccine!

While this is such exciting news and a massive breakthrough in terms of medical science, we still need to be a little cautious. Like I said, it’s amazing news but it’s going to be a long time before things do return to some normality. The trials also still haven’t quite finished yet, and also the health board need to give it the thumbs up before it can be administered to the public. But 2021 is maybe a year we can think about looking forward to. Maybe we finally do all those things we were planning to do this year.

I had a conversation with my boss about this work and she asked me if I would be willing to have the vaccine should this one be made available and I answered yes. Without a shadow of a doubt, I would have the vaccine. She even asked me if I would be the guinea pig in terms of being one of the first CF (Cystic Fibrosis) patients to have the vaccine, I even said yes to that. Myself, and so many others in the UK have been shielding and isolating from the outside world for so long, mentally, it’s exhausting. Physically, it’s unhealthy. A vaccine would allow me to return to as normal as a life I had pre-pandemic. I don’t think I want to do all this again anytime soon!

I did a poll on Instagram asking my followers if they would have the vaccine if it was available to them, 62% said yes, 17% said no and 21% said they were unsure of what to do. There are going to be some people who are going to be incredibly sceptical about this vaccine and not want to have it done, and that’s ok. Some people just don’t feel comfortable about this and don’t think it’s going to work. Some have gone about their business as usual and I don’t mind that, as long as they don’t break the rules of course! But I hope that people will want to have this vaccine to protect themselves as well as others.

Apparently there is a list of the order of who will get the vaccine first. My group are sixth on the list (Under 65’s who are vulnerable). Which I can understand why but it’s frustrating to know that I’ll be waiting probably until at least the Spring before I could have one! But eh oh, as long as it’s (hopefully) coming to the UK soon and to the rest of us, I’ll wait!

We’re all going to have an opinion on this, some will want to have one, others won’t. Anti Covid protesters DEFINITELY won’t want to have one! But I think we should all appreciate the advancements of medical science and the hard work that these scientists have put into creating a vaccine that could hopefully allow us to have a brighter future. Surely nothing can be worse than what 2020 has been?