New Normality in Spain Is Here to Stay Until 2022

The new normality in Spain is here to stay, at least until 2022. The Spanish Government has repeatedly insisted that the new normality is here to stay until a vaccine is finalised. This means learning to live with limited crowds, face masks, and interpersonal distances.

At the moment there are no great advances, research is ongoing. The drug treatments that appeared to work now seem to have certain adverse effects. There is more optimism in regard to a potential vaccine, China, the United States and the UK seem to be leading the race towards a cure.

These aforementioned countries are already in the advanced phase of human trails. However, the trajectory to create a safe vaccine takes much more than a handful of months. There will be no such thing as a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine at least for two years.

Although this may seem like an abnormal amount of time, the average length for a vaccine typically takes from eight to ten years. María Jesús Lamas, the Director of the Spanish Medicines and Health Products Agency reported this when researching the pandemic. Lamas also noted that Spain has been designated as the rapporteur for the evaluation of a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19. Any vaccines in the EU will be regulated and evaluated by the European Medicines Agency.

The head of the agency explained that some of these candidate vaccines have already been submitted to the European Medicines Agency for evaluation. Lamas explained that the great challenge that the world will face when the vaccine is available will be production. Lamas is clear on this, a global production must be addressed to reach more than 5 billion people, a challenge that has never seen before. Scaling the vaccine must be done on an unprecedented level.