Day 62 Vaccine

Notes for new readers - as this is a diary the first entry is the last, so you get to know 'who done it' before the crime is committed! This is a pain but can't be helped. After a week of entries the scrolling will stop and if you want to venture further click on 'OLDER POSTS' and read until you get to the first entry 'The Day Before Day 1

Another windfall day! No, I didn't win the lottery - perhaps that will be tomorrow. Some time last year I took on a company to look for PPI payments that Jim and I might have made in the distant past. I couldn't make the searches myself because I no longer had the relevant paperwork. Last autumn I received a small sum of a few hundred pounds from Lloyds Bank. Today I got the news that Marks and Spencers are reimbursing me to the tune of nearly £2000! Of course, I have to pay the search company their fee and tax but I shall still have a tidy sum left. I think I am going to get a new Bernina sewing machine with the money.

I made some dog biscuits today but, at first, Jasper said he didn't like them but he ate them with his dinner. I used some old peanut butter, a slightly manky banana, an egg and some flour past it's 'use by' date. They look and smell quite tasty.

Walked down the town with Jasper - no allotment today as it rained in the night. I was going to a garden centre this afternoon but did some paper work instead and cleaned the kitchen

The scrubs job is ready for collection and I shall go and get mine over the weekend.

Snippet from the News (A bit of a read, but important)

It would be hard to overstate the importance of developing a vaccine to Sars-CoV-2 – it’s seen as the fast track to a return to normal life. But while trials have been launched and manufacturing deals already signed – Oxford University is now recruiting 10,000 volunteers for the next phase of its research – ministers and their advisers have become noticeably more cautious in recent days.

This is why.

Vaccines are simple in principle but complex in practice. The ideal vaccine protects against infection, prevents its spread, and does so safely. But none of this is easily achieved, as vaccine timelines show.

More than 30 years after scientists isolated HIV, the virus that causes Aids, we have no vaccine. The dengue fever virus was identified in 1943, but the first vaccine was approved only last year, and even then amid concerns it made the infection worse in some people. The fastest vaccine ever developed was for mumps. It took four years.

Scientists have worked on coronavirus vaccines before, so are not starting from scratch. Two coronaviruses have caused lethal outbreaks before, namely Sars and Mers, and vaccine research went ahead for both. But none have been licensed. The lessons learned will help scientists create a vaccine for Sars-CoV-2, but there is still an awful lot to learn about the virus. A chief concern is that coronaviruses do not tend to trigger long-lasting immunity. About a quarter of common colds are caused by human coronaviruses, but the immune response fades so rapidly that people can become reinfected the next year.

If a vaccine only protects for a year, the virus will be with us for some time. The genetic stability of the virus matters too. Some viruses, such as influenza, mutate so rapidly that vaccine developers have to release new formulations each year. 

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Random Video

Moulin De Clout Snowbound

Video filmed by nephew David Grove when he and wife Johanna were snowed in during an overnight stay on their way to Spain  2010. 

TOT ZIENS! Wash hands! Wash hands! Wash hands!