12 March 2021: The EMA OKed the J&J vaccine…

12 March 2021: The coronavirus figures continue floating in the status quo. On average in the week to 8 March 2422 people tested positive for the virus. The figure is up with 2% on the week. In the week to 10 March 151 patients with Covid were hospitalised each day. The figure is down 1% on the week.Yesterday’s good news was that the EMA recommended granting a conditional marketing authorisation for Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine for people from 18 years old. Following Pfizer/BioNtech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, J&J is now the fourth vaccine that has been recommended for use in the EU for preventing Covid-19. This is the first vaccine that can be used as a single dose, which may give the vaccination campaign a boost. Our country ordered about 5 million doses of the vaccine, which could be delivered from early April. Unfortunately, today is again a good news/ bad news story. In Denmark, a number of cases of blood clots, and one death, have been reported following vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Whilst the health authorities are looking into this potentially adverse event the Danish government suspended AstraZeneca vaccinations. As one did not yet find a causal link between the complaints and the vaccine, Belgium decided not to halt the AstraZeneca vaccinations. In my humble opinion this time around Belgium took the right decision. On display today is another vignette of downtown Ghent – Baudelostraat, Ghent, Belgium.