Delayed second dose has given the UK the first day of zero deaths since March 2020.

The UK was the first country hit hard by the B.117 variant, far more contagious and significantly more deadly. They made the bold decision to defer 2nd doses for several months, betting on the science behind 1 dose being highly effective for a while, in order to double the number of people vaccinated.

They recently had their first day since March 2020 with zero COVID deaths.

We've been fighting B.117 and other variants in large quantities since March. Making progress, but not quite there yet.

One thing that should be noted, is that their overall protection is some what lower because of their preference to using Astrazeneca. With the South African strain and Indian strain emerging as the dominant strain, it is a race against time to get further vaccine boosters with better protection against these emergent strains.

And while some of the developed countries such as the US and UK have made significant progress in vaccinating their population, there are many more countries including most of the developing ones with little progress in vaccination either due to vaccine supply, or simply lack of resources as their healthcare systems get overloaded.

This is a stark contrast to the US where vaccine supply is in excess and there are instances of vaccination clinics that are scaling back because there are not enough arms to put the doses in, first or otherwise.

We are undergoing a global crisis and I think the true way out of it is humanitarian aid from those countries with the means to assist those most in need. Ultimately, the virus is probably not going to just magically go away, even with a significant uptake of vaccines across the world, but we can atleast curb the severity by lending a helping hand.