Covid-19 Pandemic: Speed Saves Lives

 (Drivebycuriosity) - It is well known that speed kills, not only in traffic. But there is an exception. The vaccination campaign against Covid-19 can not be fast enough. The chart above shows that the European Union, Latin America, India and other regions experience another wave of infections (spiegel.de ).  But there is one exception: Great Britain reports slowly sinking numbers (charts below )

 

 

 

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Apparently the British benefit from a rapid vaccination campaign which reduces the number of persons who could get infected and breaks many infection chains. 

 

 

 

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Today already 45% of the Brits received at least one dose of vaccine, but only 12% of the German and the French did so. Even the fast vaccinating US is far behind with just 29% people vaccinated with at least one dose  ( ourworldindata).

Why are the UK ahead of other nations? There are 2 reasons:  

1. The UK was the first country in the world to give the green light to a clinically-approved Covid-19 vaccine, on Dec. 2 ( qz.com). The UK also negotiated contracts which encouraged production. The "pattern of Britain investing aggressively and early while the EU takes a slower, more cautious approach has been the hallmark of the vaccine race in Europe", wrote AP ( apnews).

2. Great Britain chose a first-dose-first (FDF) strategy. While the US and the EU countries follow the original recommendations by the vaccine producers and try to give the recipients 2 doses in a short time the British delay the second dose some months which allows them to vaccinate twice the number of people in a short time.

New findings support the British strategy. It turned out that AstraZeneca works better when the second dose is injected after three months (not just after four weeks as originally recommended spiegel.de). According to AstraZeneca a longer waiting time raises the efficacy by 80% (papers ). Other studies show that the first doses from Moderna or Pfizer are already 80% effective after 18 days ( cnbc).

 

 

 

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The rapid vaccination reduced the number of hospital admissions and deaths in the UK significantly. Speed saves lives!