There is now the ‘80% likelihood’ of a COVID-19 vaccine by September 2020!

Remember when it was ’12-18 months’?

An Oxford group’s vaccine candidate is about to begin trials and they’re confident, and not even quietly! And they’re talking September release is possible. So it NEVER was 12-18 months.

Why is this important?

I knew that in a pandemic it would be MUCH shorter than 12-18 months but almost nobody talked about it so it MISLEAD our decision-making about how to approach social distancing.

We’re not out of this yet, but you should plan for the best (September vaccine) AND the worst (12-18 months or never).

That’s why it’s so important that we plan for local eradication.

It’s possible and in many countries like Australia it looks very doable despite expert naysayers. And if we can get enough testing capability it’s not ridiculously onerous or expensive as we open up again soon . . to a NEW normal.

The point is if you just ‘flatten the curve’ or ‘suppress’ you still gradually creep to herd immunity by infection (rather than vaccination) and suffer the corresponding hundreds of thousands of deaths including tens of thousands of young-ish people.

So local eradication – with closed borders and unprecedented testing – keeps the vulnerable and unlucky alive while we wait for the vaccine. And it might be by September with an estimated ‘80% chance’.

Anyone who is not a huge pessimist and knows their biomedicine KNEW that there was a DECENT chance of early vaccines given this COVID-19 was like this generation’s World War II.

Yet some of our near-delinquent (IMO) pandemic planning ‘experts’ set us – especially in the UK & US, but even Australia – on the wrong course early on that completely ignored this possibility.

Let’s learn from this: hear all the options, plan for the best AND the worst, don’t be too pessimistic or you’ll let hundreds of thousands or millions die needlessly.