The current Covid-19 Pandemic has truly turned the whole world upside down affecting every nation, people and strata of society — rich and poor alike. It has morphed from a health pandemic into an economic disaster with much wider and deeper implications, affecting everyone.

The SARS-COV2 Virus : It is a single stranded highly infectious RNA Coronavirus for human to human transmissibility via close contact and respiratory droplets from talking, coughing/sneezing and singing. Entry portals - the nose, mouth or eyes.

Covid 19 virus is able to enter a cell because the spike protein acts as a 'key' to open the door to enter the human cell via the ACE2 receptor that is found in abundance on our mucosal surfaces Spike protein is the 'key' but also it's 'Archillis heel'

Concluding remarks:
The Covid-19 Pandemic has to date (2nd March 2021) affected 114,428,987 people resulting in at least 2,538,582 deaths, an extremely high toll in human lives by any reckoning. We are thankful for the rapid development of the Covid vaccines within a very short span of about 9 months. To date 245 million doses of the Covid vaccine have been administered in 107 countries at a rate of about 6.79 million doses/day.

Although the overall infection fatality rate for covid-19 is 1.4%, (crude mortality rate is = 0.28%) depending on your age, gender, comorbidities it can fluctuate from 0.02% (0-9yrs) to 14.3% (275yrs).

Yes I would agree that the current Covid-19 Vaccines are all not perfect. If we want to wait until a perfect vaccine with only 'minimal' side effects, both immediate and/or long-term be tested, proven and certified which will possibly take 2 to 5 years minimal. How many more lives need to be sacrificed on the altar of theoretical side-effects & possibilities ? This is something for all of us to consider and answer.

Rev Dr Ng Swee Ming MBBS Mal, 'DHA
Pastor,
Sungai Way-Subang Methodist Church
Tuesday 2nd March 2021

Listen to the full talk at
https://youtu.be/nOH-1nSXsmU

NB: Acknowledge that the graphics are adapted from the New York Times very graphical depiction of the Covid-19 virus and vaccine. All the other figures quoted are gleaned from the freely available internet sources.