A Journal of the Plague Year

 

I say the concern with COVID, if not the pandemic itself, will be over by the end of September. 

Reasons for optimism are accumulating.

Most notably, the UAE actually seems to have an effective vaccine from China out and ready to roll. This vaccine completed stage 2 trials in July, so it has now plausibly completed stage 3. One hundred thousand people have been given the vaccine, and none have contracted COVID-19. No serious side effects reported.

So it looks as though the race is over, and China won. The numbers of new cases in China too have been absurdly small for some time—only 12 yesterday. Figures from China may not be reliable, but figures from the UAE probably are.

So now the only problem is supply. It will take some time for this or another vaccine to get to a shoulder near you, but this must boost morale. If those most at risk are vaccinated first, it should make the death rates drop fast where it is deployed.

This puts pressure on the US and UK, where they are a month or two behind. The CEO of Pfizer says there is a better than even chance that their vaccine will be out of trial and ready to go by the end of October. Three other entries are moving at about the same pace. There are other efforts in China, India, Israel, perhaps elsewhere.

In the meantime, a new study suggests that, aside from preventing the spread of the virus to others, face masks ensure that, if you get the virus, you get a low dose. With this low initial dose, your chances of being symptomless go from 40% to 80%. In effect, this is a natural inoculation. And if the threshold is really only 20% or so, as some studies have now suggested, we may soon reach herd immunity.

And then there is Vitamin D. If everyone made sure their Vitamin-D levels were high, and wore masks everywhere, the chance of a serious infection gets vanishingly small. Even without hydroxychloroquine and zinc, which the authorities still unaccountably and criminally refuse to investigate.