A number of countries have announced the production, import and “coverage” of vaccines for their own populations in recent days. Finland’s government said that it had agreed a national strategy for COVID-19 vaccinations, planning to give them to everyone ,beginning with vaccinating selected healthcare staff from January onwards. In Turkey, the Minister of Health also announced plans to vaccinate against Covid-19 at the end of December 2020 to control the spread of the pandemic. In Russia, President V. Putin instructed the government to start mass vaccination at the end of this week. Some other European countries such as Germany, Norway, Spain have also announced their timeframes on COVID-19 vaccination plan for their peoples.
Meanwhile, in New York, which is a hotspot of the pandemic, the governor said the state expects to receive doses for 170,000 people in the first rollout. The vaccine is a product of Pfizer and BioNTech SE. The second shipment of the vaccine made by Moderna is expected to reach New Zealand by the end of December. In Mexico, the Ministry of Health said it will receive its first batch of Pfizer vaccine, with 250,000 doses in December.
The above information helped European and Asian stocks simultaneously rally in recent sessions. In the first trading days of December, major stock indices on the European market all made gains. Specifically, the STOXX 600 index all over Europe increased by 0.3%, while in the Asian market, investors resumed their stock buying activities thanks to information about the vaccine. The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index (excluding Japan) rose 1.08%.
According to some economic experts, the prospect of millions of people starting to get vaccinated over the next few weeks is a driving force for many traders to bet on a strong economic recovery in 2021.
According to the WHO, after a period of simultaneous research and production of vaccines, there are currently about 51 COVID-19 vaccines being tested on humans, 13 of which have reached their final stages and are now being tested on a large scale. Meanwhile, about 163 other vaccines are being developed in laboratories around the world. However, the biggest question now is that how long will the protective effectiveness of these vaccines be? Recently, the emergence of re-infected cases with a variant virus has raised doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
Another problem is that even if the COVID-19 vaccine is fully effective, many people still refuse to get it. Survey results in 15 new countries released at the World Economic Forum earlier this month showed that the number of people willing to get vaccinated has decreased since August from 77% to 73%. In France, the survey results showed that only 54% of French respondents said they would get vaccinated against COVID-19. In addition, in the short term, the world will still have to “live together with the pandemic” as the supply of vaccines is very limited. The WHO is even concerned that the world will not have enough vaccines to prevent anincrease in cases in three to six months.
The COVID-19 vaccine will not be the only way to push back the pandemic. The world will continue to fight the virus for a long time, and the short-term disease situation and end of the epidemic will depend on decisions made by leaders and people in the coming days. Accordingly, each citizen, each country must eliminate their subjective senses. In the short term, social distancing and epidemic prevention measures should be maintained in order to curb the spread of this dangerous pandemic.
