OPINION: The world may have just found a vaccine to bring a potential end to this COVID pandemic.
It has killed more than a million people and turned the world, households, businesses and your lives upside down, inside out and then some.
And here's the crucial bit for us here in NZ: This is the same vaccine for which New Zealand has purchased 1.5 million doses.
That's enough for 750,000 of us initially.
We are with the right company and in the right queue. This is the most encouraging news yet.
I've been careful not to promote false hope around vaccines in recent months
We have been cautious and conservative as each and every so-called 'find' has been revealed.
But the interim results from Pfzier and BioNTech's large scale trials involving 43,000 people show their vaccine is 90 percent effective. The interim results have surprised all the waiting medical experts.
And crucially there have been no serious side effects.
One of Pfizer’s top vaccine developers described himself as 'near ecstatic'. Carefully, I note, leaving himself room to be fully ecstatic should it hit market shortly.
And if all things go well it may be before Christmas.
Health workers would be first in line. The company will not know until early December if the authorities give it the green light, but it hasn't stopped them producing it anyway.
The US, EU and UK have all ordered the vaccine, as have we, and on the back of this announcement shares in airlines have jumped.
The world may finally be allowed to open up slowly next year, a weapon to fight off one of the world's most complex viruses may not be far off.
Good morning New Zealand, it really feels like it is a "good" morning.
Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.
