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The New Year has started and, as the Prime Minister has put us into a third lockdown, it promises to be as much of a roller coaster as the year to which many of us have recently wished ‘good riddance’. With great fanfare, the AstraZeneca (Oxford) and Moderna vaccines have been approved for use, and the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine has already been widely distributed since the beginning of December. It has been reported that 2,286,572 people received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine between 8 December 2020 and Sunday 10 January.1 The enormous task ahead is to provide vaccination for the rest of the UK, which will then provide protection for the population against this devastating infection.
The call has gone out for vaccinators in many regions, and in answer to this I spent a few hours this weekend on the e-LfH portal studying the coronavirus (COVID-19) information.2,3,4 To reassure you, it takes only 2–3 hours to cover the material, after which a 10-question assessment can be taken and once passed, provides a certificate to proceed.
Assuming that you have updated your basic life support/CPR training within the last 12 months, all that is then needed is to be familiar with anaphylaxis recognition and management.5,6 The final hurdle to being approved to be a vaccinator is to complete the competency log showing training and assessment under direct supervision of delivering vaccines to a small number of patients.7
I would urge you to consider giving up some of your time to contribute to the mammoth task ahead for the whole world. To remind you of the words of the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who reminded us that: ‘None of us will be safe, until everyone is safe’.
Our first issue of Orthodontic Update in 2021 contains a wide variety of subjects that will hopefully pique the interest of busy clinicians, as well as those in training. We cover tongue thrust, patient questionnaires and offer useful advice on finishing cases to a Class III molar relationship and iatrogenic complications of orthodontics.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank all authors of the myriad of papers already accepted and/or published in Orthodontic Update, for contributing to the ongoing success of this publication. And to all potential authors, we welcome all submissions and assure you that we will not keep you waiting long for a decision from our reviewers.
Very best wishes to each and every one you, as we face the challenges ahead in 2021