Covid-19 vaccine alone won’t defeat spread of virus

A successful vaccine for Covid-19 will not conquer the spread of the virus alone, with restrictions on daily life likely to continue for some time, a team of experts have said.

Hundreds of teams of researchers around the world are working to produce a vaccine against the coronavirus, with 11 currently in phase three human trials. The UK government has reserved access to six potential vaccines and has raised hopes that a vaccine could be on the cards by spring next year.

A report from a multidisciplinary group convened by the Royal Society, called Delve (Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics), says there are serious challenges to producing a vaccine, including hurdles in manufacturing and storage, questions around how well vaccines will work, and problems with public trust.

Prof Nilay Shah, the head of the department of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, and an author of the report, said that while there would be vaccines available in March – not least because manufacturing is beginning before the results of trials are known– the question was whether they will have been shown to be effective and passed regulatory processes.

“Even if we get through that and the material is available and vaccination does start in the spring, it will take a long time to work through the different priority groups initially and then the wider population later on,” he said, adding that it may take up to a year.