28 December 2020: Hope springs eternal…

28 December 2020: Update on The Corona Pandemic – There has been a further fall in the average daily number of new coronavirus cases, hospitalisations and deaths. It’s also the first time since 20 October that fewer than 500 patients are in critical care. Still, in the week to 23 December on average 2,319 people a day tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Clearly, we will need to have the majority of the population inoculated before we can go back to our normal lives. Therefore, it was a little bit of a bummer when on Saturday it emerged that seniors outside care homes and patients with chronic diseases in the 45-to-65 age bracket would only start to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in May. Yesterday, however, the news was a little bit more optimistic. If the approval and supply of vaccines goes smoothly one could revisit the timetable and start to switch things around said Pierre Van Damme one of Belgium’s lead virologists. According to the most recent information the Moderna vaccine is scheduled to receive market authorization in Europe in the first week of January and one seems to be optimistic about the AstraZeneca/Oxford and J&J vaccines getting market authorization in Q1. Hope springs eternal, as they say. Anyhow, we did not let us bother yesterday. Whilst rain and gusts were our lot as storm Bella swept over Ghent, we made pancakes with our cuddle contact – Ghent, Belgium