Trinity College immunologist Professor Luke O'Neill has said that "we're in the endgame" of Covid-19, if everything goes well with vaccines over coming months.
Speaking on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, Professor O'Neill reacted to today's news that the Oxford/Astrazeneca Covid-19 vaccine is thought to be 70% effective. This comes after recent trials by Pfizer and Moderna came in at over 90% efficacy and Professor O'Neill was upbeat when speaking to Kenny this morning.
He said: "I'm trying to contain myself this morning, because this is the third Monday we've had a big announcement on a vaccine and this looks remarkable." He added that "Once again, this is a press release so we'd like to see the data, to start with a caveat. They've got 70% efficacy in the trial. It gets to 90%, actually, if they use a slightly different protocol. This one may hit 90% just like the other two."
The latest vaccine is thought to work well with older people, with AstroZeneca and Oxford hoping to get it out to low and middle income countries. As for what the world can expect over the next while, Professor O'Neill said: "In my view, we're now in the endgame of this disease if everything goes well." He added that "widespread vaccination programmes could be rolled out as early as March given the current progress being made."
You can listen to Luke O'Neill's full chat with Pat Kenny via
this link.
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