Dr Ronan Glynn: There's hope at the end of a very tough year

This has been an incredibly difficult year for everyone.

But 2020 has also been a year of very significant medical and scientific achievement in which a new illness has been characterised, its genome sequenced and diagnostics and treatments have been developed.

And now, subject to authorisation by the European Medicines Agency, Ireland is on the cusp of deploying at least two Covid-19 vaccines as part of a national vaccination programme.

Dr Ronan Glynn (Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin)

Many are now asking, how has it all happened so quickly?

There are several reasons why this timeline has been really cut down for Covid-19 vaccine candidates.

First, there have been enormous levels of investment and scientific and medical research, on a scale never previously seen in vaccine development.

Second, because of the high number of new cases of Covid-19 across the world, the vaccine trials were able to quickly measure differences in disease risk between those who received the vaccine and those who got the placebo or dummy vaccine.

Third, many of the processes which normally take place one after the other in vaccine development have instead been running in parallel.

But we are not through this yet. This virus doesn’t care that we have done well recently.

It doesn’t care that we are tired or that we are desperate to see our families and friends.

It is no less dangerous now than it was in March.