3 December 2020: Help is on its way…

3 December 2020: Update on The Corona Pandemic – Yesterday it was announced that the UK gave emergency authorization to the BioNTech-Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, leaping ahead of the US and Continental Europe to become the first country to allow mass inoculations against Covid-19. Our Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, announced that Belgium will be able to start to vaccinate against the coronavirus as early as 5 January 2021. He promised that the country will be ready to start the vaccination campaign as soon as the vaccines are supplied and approved. In coming days the government will decide how the campaign will be staged and which groups will be vaccinated first. It was also announced that Belgium decided to place an order for two million doses of the Moderna vaccine. The order for vaccines from a fifth supplier means Belgium should have enough doses to protect its entire population.  Earlier Belgium placed orders with AstraZeneca/Oxford University, JanssenPharmaceutica (Johnson&Johnson), Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac. Together, these orders are good for 20.8 million doses, enough to vaccinate 10.4 million people. Meanwhile, the Corona figures continue to head in the right direction. In the week to 1 December, on average, there were 204 daily hospitalisations linked to coronavirus.  The figure is down 28% on the previous week, when on average there were 282 daily hospitalisations. Today’s picture is again from the Opal coast. On display is the small village of Audresselles at dawn – Opal Coast, France.