National Geographic spoke with Prof. Byram Bridle, a viral immunologist at U of G’s Ontario Veterinary College, about how effective a new COVID-19 vaccine will need to be.

With several potential vaccines under development, will we take the first one that becomes available, even if it works on only half of patients? the magazine asked.

“Fifty per cent would be terrible,” Bridle said. “For this pandemic to end, we need to achieve herd immunity.”

A professor in the Department of Pathobiology, Bridle recently received rapid provincial research funding for research to develop a vaccine against the pandemic virus. He hopes to adapt technology developed in his lab using viruses to deliver cancer therapies.