27 December 2020: Pfizer BioNTech vaccine arrived in all European countries.

27 December 2020: Update on The Corona Pandemic – There’s been a 6% drop in the average daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the week to 22 December with 2,378 cases being recorded each day on average.  Also, the number of hospitalisations and deaths has fallen. Yesterday, a first batch of 10,000vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech arrived at the University Hospital of Leuven. The hospital will serve as the central hub for distribution of the vaccine across Belgium. Supplies for all of Europe will be furnished from the Pfizer factory in Puurs, Belgium. The rest of the world is supplied by the company’s main plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The Belgian government provided yesterday also more details on the roll-out of its vaccination strategy. Care home residents will be vaccinated first. The roll-out of the vaccine to all care homes could take until the end of February. Starting March hospital staff and first line care workers will be immunised.  As of May, people over 65 living at home and people with chronic illnesses will be vaccinated. Isn’t that two months later than what initially was announced? Anyhow, the timing of the whole operation will largely depend on the availability of vaccines.  It’s unclear to me if this schedule is based on the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine only and if the current plan will be reviewed and hopefully accelerated as soon as the Moderna vaccine has received market approval in the second half of January. Whatever the timing will be there is hope… Today’s picture of somebody cycling through a cold and grey landscape northwest of Ghent depicts the long and cold winter we still have ahead of us – Meetjesland, Belgium