IT IS ALARMING to be invited to come forward for yet another dose of vaccine. How can it be that we still don’t have enough immunity against this virus? How could any scientist have developed a vaccine so fast? Perhaps it isn’t working? Many of us have misgivings. It’s understandable.

If you didn’t catch the Richard Dimbleby lecture ‘Vaccine Versus Virus’ on BBC One last week, look it up. It answers a lot of these concerns. The talk by Dame Sarah Gilbert, the co-developer of the game-changing Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, is truly illuminating. She explains how she and her colleagues were alerted to the virus in the first days of 2020 when news broke that a new SARS-type virus had been identified in Wuhan, China. Over the next four to five months, while we were still wondering what all the fuss was about, she and her team of expert virologists were working day and night to find a vaccine – the way to save lives.

In layman’s words, she explains why she was so alarmed at the first reports; how, using their extensive experience in vaccine development, they were able to quickly re-align their current work to the challenge. Recent outbreaks of new viruses like SARS and Ebola had led them to develop platforms and systems which could quickly be re-applied to study different DNA codes of emerging viruses.

She explained how, with emergency funding and collaboration, groups of the world’s experts worked in parallel, rather than in competition, to complete tests, trials, efficacy and safety experiments.

No steps were missed, no shortcuts were taken. Their expertise and logical application of the science left them perfectly placed to find the vaccine. They succeeded – spectacularly so.

Already, two billion doses of their vaccine have been distributed around the planet. The virus is changing all the time but, with a further boost to our immune systems, history shows we can and will overcome it.

So, if you ask me, be reassured. Take the vaccine and the boosters. Trust the scientists.

They know it makes sense.