We might finally have a COVID vaccine – here’s some memes while we wait

Researchers yesterday (November 9) unveiled they had produced a coronavirus vaccine with a 90 per cent success rate, a major scientific and technological feat that could see the entire world attending enormous water park festivals next summer.

The vaccine was produced by Pfizer, an American multinational pharmaceutical firm, in collaboration with Germany’s BioNTech, whose co-founder said of the achievement: “To me, this is the best possible outcome. A great day for science and humanity.”

British health secretary Matt Hancock has said that the vaccine could be available on the NHS before Christmas, and he’s also asked the health service to be ready to roll it out as early as next month. “We will be working across the NHS with the support of the armed forces seven days a week, over weekends, over bank holidays, to get this rolled out into people’s arms as quickly as possible,” he told the BBC today.

Currently, the policy is that the injection would not be required for children, and the uptake of it in the rest of the population would be voluntary. The priority will go to care homes, social care staff, and the elderly, and will be delivered through GPs as well as “go-to” centres set up in local venues like sports halls, the Guardian reported.

Whether or not the government will add the distribution of a vaccine to a growing list of things it’s got horribly wrong during the coronavirus pandemic remains to be seen, but Hancock added: “We’ve been working on it for months in anticipation of this going right. We haven’t got a vaccine yet, we’re not there yet. But we are one important step closer and we’re ready, we’ll be ready to deploy it.”

There won’t be enough for everyone straight away – 100 million doses are expected by the end of 2020 and 1.3 billion by the end of 2021 – and the initial batches may go to the queue-jumping rich, buying their way to immunity while the rest of the world suffers. In the meantime everyone is laughing at vaccine memes, some of which we’ve gathered below.