The next few months will be our darkest times for the United States vis a vis COVID 19...or so we've been told. What is your country facing?

I expect other countries haven't politicized it so they can react logically and cooperate with what is being advised. In America of course if you wear a mask you are anti-duck. All pro-ducks go maskless and rant and rave about their rights being restricted! As if wanting them to live were a devious deceitful evil thing. Americans are not the sharpest knives in the drawer by a long shot. To their on detriment and demise. And so it goes. When do you think vaccinations will be available to all in your country Drudle? Days, weeks or months ahead? Thank you for our reply! :)

I think the only other country that has politicised it, is Brazil; which also has the physical problem of vast numbers of people living in tightly-crammed, shanty-town slums on the edges of the cities.

The vaccination programme in the UK will take months. I don't think anyone has even suggested otherwise.

We do by the way have occasional demonstrations against the restrictions, but thankfully not on a large scale. We've also the problem of anti-vaccination believers. Many are simply ignorant and afraid, so will have to be won over;  but their fears are stoked by the wilful liars who make them believe all sorts of nonsense, much of which is not even logical. 

I heard one such on the radio the other evening, used as an example. He spoke in a very calm, authoritative tone with a definite NE English accent about how the whole thing is a hoax, etc., etc. If I was interviewing him I would ask him to explain if he wants diseases like Covid-19, TB, polio, tetanus, rubella, etc., to become rampant again, and if so, why he wants that. Not what he wants me to believe about those he accuses.

To their credit I hear companies like Facebook are doing all they can to shut such people up - my thought is not only delete their posts but close their entire accounts with electronic bans on the source addresses. They do though recognise that those who are genuinely ignorant and fearful need to be heard and answered properly, so it is not an easy thing to do.

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Another bit of news announced today, from Oxford University's diseases research unit is the development of a vaccine for malaria, which is a potentially fatal disease very difficult to fight. So far the only defence, and one used by travellers intending to visit malaria-carrying regions, is a course of unpleasant injections for some  time beforehand,  but I think the intention here is a simple vaccination feasible for the populations of such countries.

Thank you for your thoughtful and informative reply Durdle. I was enlightened about something I did not know and I will have to do further research on it. He isn't an expert but he has friends who are and this is what he told me. Vaccines and other drugs are not alike. The result of vaccines can be tracked very quickly and rarely are there any long-term surprise side effects. Anything that goes directly into the system and doesn't need digesting/dispersind (like pills) leave track immediately. Which is why vaccines can be fast tracked while other drugs dare not. That puts a whole new light on it for me. The FDA trials for calcitonin were for a DRUG not a vaccine. Of course they did a double blind test or whatever they call it. Some of us were given placebos while others were given the drug. I unfortunately received the placebo because during the years of the trials my bone density deteriorated. I was not supposed to be given any info but a doctor involved in it told me my bone density had deteriorated and to contact by GP to get tested. So I did. They recorded my bone density measurement at the beginning and at the end and that's how the doctor knew what was going on. So my huge apprehensions at the shortchanging of time are misguided. Which makes me feel much better. So if Dr. Fauci approves of any vaccine I will take it. Thought I'd sahre that with you and I'm going to ask a question to inform others too. :)