ARCHIVED - Coronavirus vaccine for Spain expected to be widely available by next March

AstraZeneca forecast a “horrific” winter but a return to relative normality by next summer

The latest news from AstraZeneca, the UK-based company whose coronavirus vaccine is currently in an advanced stage of testing, is that the product could be widely distributed by the end of March 2021.
Josep Baselga, the head of the Oncological Research and Development department of the company, stated on Monday that “if all goes well” by the end of the first quarter of next year distribution will be well under way, with some 3,000 million doses of the vaccine having been verified as being effective. At that point the most complex task will be to decide how to distribute the product given the enormous demand which already exists, and it is for this reason that he believes the vaccine will not be widely available for another 5 months or so.

The latest progress report from AstraZeneca is that of the four potential vaccines which are being tested “one, two or three” are expected to have been verified as producing the desired result by the end of this year. Meanwhile, throughout the world Sr Baselga reports that some 175 possible vaccines are being worked on, among them 35 which are undergoing clinical testing and 10 in the final stage of verification.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which was developed in collaboration with Oxford University, falls into this last group, and the company has already guaranteed that it will meet an initial order of at least 300 million doses from the EU, over 30 million of them being allocated to Spain. This means that it will be possible to vaccinate over 15 million people in this country, since each patient requires two doses, the second of them 28 days after the first (although Covid immunity will begin to kick in before those 28 days have passed).

Sr Baselga is among those who believe that people who do not wish to be vaccinated should not be obliged to do so, on the grounds that the principle of individual freedom of choice must be respected. He also stresses that although the vaccine will help, it is “not the only solution”, and for this reason AstraZeneca is also developing “monoclonal antibodies”, a technique which will allow antibodies from patients who have suffered the virus to be transferred to potential future sufferers: 16 such treatments are being studied, one of which he says is “extremely good”.

Summing up, the AstraZeneca director believes that it is too late to avoid a “horrific” winter, but that by next summer the situation will be “relatively normal”. However, he also forecasts that “we will never return to the normality we had before”, with precautions such as social distancing continuing to be taken, facemasks being worn and large crowds being avoided.

Once rapid testing has been perfected, he expects it to be applied in situations such as air passengers preparing to board planes and those waiting to enter football stadia or concert venues.