Let's be honest, we won't be able to get back to any kind of "normal" until we have a vaccine that works and people take it. At one point we heard from health officials that we might not get a vaccine for 18 months, this is mainly because they have to create it, test it and then roll it out.
I think we're still months and months away from being able to get a vaccine but we did get some good news this morning from Pfizer - one of the companies creating a vaccine.
the CEO of Pfizer, Dr. Albert Bourla spoke about their recent results and said this is a "Great day for science and humanity." He's excited because the vaccine that they developed is more than 90% effective in preventing coronavirus infections. Basically that's the same level of effectiveness of the measles vaccine!
Here's how it would work, the vaccine would require 2 doses and the protection kicks in about 28 days after the initial dose. That kind of sucks because what do you do in those 28 days, BUT at the moment, it's better than nothing.
The company says that they should have enough doses to immunize 15 million to 20 million people by the end of the year. But just so you know the U.S. population is 328.2 million - there are about 40 million people in California alone.
The Operation Warp Speed folks have promised Pfizer nearly $2 billion to deliver 100 million doses to Americans free of charge.
Hopefully this news just means there is a light at the end of the tunnel. 1.2 million people have died of Covid worldwide and over 240,000 people in the U.S.