The issue with the speedy development of the COVID vaccine is less what it means for that vaccine's safety, but what it means for all the other vaccines which were not developed. In effect what happened was a world-wide, money-no-object focus on COVID because of its importance.

It showed what can be achieved when enough priority is accorded to an issue - and this got priority because it impacts the rich and powerful. Suddenly we found that progress can be accelerated by large well-funded teams working in parallel and lives can be saved as a result.

But it also shows starkly that the failure to develop vaccines and save lives results as much a political and ethical failure as a scientific impasse. Take malaria as the obvious example. It kills some 400,000 people a year of whom most (nearly 300,000 are children under 5.

But 94% of those deaths are in Africa, so they are less of a priority to the rich and powerful nations with the resources to prioritise research. And so we still have no vaccine after all these years.

Having said that, as the COVId vaccines were announced, the Oxford group announced they were turning to malaria trials next and might have something ready by 2024. But even if that happens it will mean a million more children will die.

So, as I say, for me the real question of this year is not whether it is safe to have a COVID vaccine, but how on earth we can justify there not being a vaccine for the diseases of the poor and forgotten?