Pfizer the American drug maker and its German partner BioNTech report that their COVID 19 vaccine is 90% effective.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla calls this a game changer.

Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases – who is probably the most trusted doctor in America – says this extraordinarily good news.

We know that people who had shots of the vaccine three weeks apart showed a 90% rate of immunity over those taking the placebo.

Doctors were saying the best they could hope for was 60%-70% effectiveness.

According to Food and Drug Administration guidelines, Pfizer has not filed for emergency use for two months after the test to be sure of the vaccine’s safety.

This means the vaccine should be available in the third week of this month.

Bourla says there will be 50 million doses available globally by the end of this year.

At least 1,3 billion doses will be available in 2021.

It is not yet clear if the vaccine will obviate severe cases of COVID that require hospitalisation and could result in death.

Neither is it certain whether persons vaccinated will not show symptoms of COVID.

Most importantly, Pfizer cannot say how long the vaccine will be effective for.

Nevertheless stock exchanges around the world are preparing for record breaking openings today as sectors like airlines tourism and others for which COVID was an existential threat begin to recover.

The old maxim is that good news comes in threes.

The vaccine is the second heartening item following Joe Biden’s decisive US Presidential election win last weekend.

Dare we hope that the third will be Donald Trump being persuaded by the growing band of family members urging him to face reality and make a dignified departure?

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The U.S. has recorded 2 489 COVID19 death and passed both China and Italy with the number of infections.

US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci says the US could have between 100 and 200 000 coronavirus deaths.

This as the world wide death toll exceeds 30 000.

Spain had a record 838 deaths in the past 24 house and Italy  registered 756 new deaths in a day.

Britain, where infected Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that things would get worse before they got better, recorded 209 deaths.

Australia has added restrictions to movement to stop the spread of the pandemic.

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