Why Covid-19 vaccines face a new obstacle course

Tim Harford
A researcher working in a lab run by Moderna, which says its experimental vaccine is 94.5 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial. A vaccine is one of the world's most complex products to produce, says
A researcher working in a lab run by Moderna, which says its experimental vaccine is 94.5 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial. A vaccine is one of the world's most complex products to produce, says the writer, and the process of scaling up from tens of thousands of doses for a trial to hundreds of millions for mass vaccination is not trivial.PHOTO: REUTERS
  • Published
    Nov 22, 2020, 5:00 am SGT
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The race to find an effective vaccine appears to be on the home straight. The same cannot be said of the race to roll it out everywhere.

Preparing to present a BBC radio series titled How To Vaccinate The World, I've been looking at the route ahead. It is less of a marathon, more of an assault course.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on November 22, 2020, with the headline 'Why Covid-19 vaccines face a new obstacle course'. Subscribe
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