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Good Morning Britain Guest Lecturer Sir John Bell spoke about the James Bond-style Pfizer vaccine with presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid.
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer made a Covid-19 vaccine that was 90% effective when tested in a group of 40,000 people.
When asked if this news is really the breakthrough, he said: “This is a pretty substantial step.
“Not only do they have a vaccine that works, it’s working at a much higher level than most of us think a vaccine would work.
“This was the breakthrough we needed to make a difference.”
When asked about his confidence that we will be back to normal in the spring and what it will be like, Professor Sir John said: “The first thing that is going to happen is that this has to be approved by regulators both in the US and here.
“That, based on the data I’ve seen, should be pretty straightforward.
“That will be ready for regulators to see next week as I understand it.
“Regulators should change it pretty quickly; I would have thought it would take up to a week to pass it.”
He continued: “So it’s really a matter of getting the vaccine that has already been produced and getting it out so that people can start getting vaccinated.
“This vaccine has a problem, it has to be transported at a very low temperature -80 degrees … which seems to me to be one of the major problems that we will have to overcome. But compared to inventing a vaccine, that is not such a complicated problem.
“I must also say that because this vaccine has been successful, it is highly likely that the other vaccines that showed the same kind of ability to elicit immune responses will also be successful.
“There are at least two that we will be able to see at some point in the next few weeks: one is the Moderna vaccine, the other is the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“If they play too, we will have two or three shots.”
After Professor Sir John described the vaccine as tricking cells into producing a viral protein that the immune system reacts to, Piers Morgan called the vaccine a “James Bond of vaccines.”
Piers said: “He’s deceptive, cunning, incredibly ruthless, and kills the enemy just when he thinks he has Bond where he wants him!”
Professor Sir John replied: “That is exactly the correct description actually.
“And the other good news is that it is very fast. You can do these things very quickly.
“All you need is a strand of RNA, you can do that in a very short time.
“It is also a real promise for future pandemics.”
* Good Morning Britain airs Monday through Friday on ITV at 6am. M.
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