COVID-19: What’s next?
Covid – 19 is a contagious virus that is spreading through the world right now. There have been 1.34 million deaths already and a total of 55.6 million cases. People say that the virus originated in Wuhan,China in 2019 then continued to spread worldwide. Currently Covid – 19 is the worst in the U.S with a total of more than 200,000 deaths.You can spread the virus by spreading droplets generated by coughing, sneezing, laughing, talking, etc, when people are interacting closely.
What’s next? Well, places such as the U.S and Canada have started to open up schools, movie theaters, malls, etc. Even though these places are taking precautions such as, wearing a mask, hand sanitizing, standing 6 ft apart, there are still cases. Due to all of these places reopening with no vaccine yet scientists are predicting that there will be a second wave of Covid – 19 and it’s just getting started.
Fortunately there are two vaccines, the company Pfizer and the other company BioNtech, and people claim Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective. Places such as Europe, the U.K. and Canada have already ordered tons of vaccines. However, with little vaccine supply available it’s not going to be an easy winter and people still need to be taking precautions to not make the situation worse. The good news is that they found a vaccine,“we might be able to get control of this pandemic situation late summer 2021,” Dr. Ugur Sahin, BioNTech’s CEO and co-founder, told The Associated Press. To get the vaccine there will be two shots and you will have to wait at least 28 days in between each shot. However, going forward the biggest dilemma is how the vaccine will be distributed. The health organizations are saying that they are thinking about giving the vaccine to the wealthiest people first because some of the governments won’t be able to pay for all of the people. However, this has caused conflict between people that are saying that the more vulnerable people need the vaccine first. Another problem is if there will be enough vaccines to go around. BioNtech and Pfizer expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.
Even though they have found vaccines it does not mean it’s over yet, so wear your mask, social distance, wash your hands, and be safe.