The Trump administration has announced it is partnering with drugmaker AstraZeneca for at least 300 million doses of a corona virus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, and is committing up to $1.2 billion to the effort.

As an alumnus of Oxford I am naturally proud that my alma mater is at the forefront of the fight against Covid 19.

But actually I am concerned (without knowing a thing about vaccine development) that this might turn out to be yet another problem that prolongs the crisis.  I gather that opinion polls are indicating that, apart from the nutcases who won’t be vaccinated at all, ever (!), respondents are expressing reservations about this new vaccine on the grounds that it has been developed too quickly and might cause more problems than it cures.  This attitude, very rational, emerges from repeated comments by experts that an effective vaccine is maybe as much as a year, eighteen months or even two years away, and that you cannot develop a cure this quickly.  Therefore , they will refuse to be treated with it, just in case.

Ouch!